The French walnut improvement program

F. Lheureux, E. Dirlewanger, B. Anthony
Due to the important economic development of the walnut, the current and future varietal choice in France does not seem sufficient to respond to the new constraints. It is necessary to adapt to global competition, climate change that is probably already leading to increased sanitary problems, and the reduction of plant protection products and inputs. The goal of the Ctifl, in collaboration with INRA and under support of the French walnut industry, is to initiate a new and more efficient breeding program. The walnut genetic resources and an intra specific progeny of Juglans regia will be studied. The objectives of the project are firstly to assess the genetic diversity of the walnut collection, and secondly to identify the genetic determinism of agronomic traits such as those related to phenology, tree architecture, susceptibility to different diseases and the quality of the fruit. The complete plant material will be phenotyped for the previous agronomic traits and genotyped using SSR and SNP markers. The study of the INRA walnut collection will allow the creation of a core collection and the identification of promising genitors. This collection and the progeny mapping population will be exploited for the study of the genetic determinism of the characters of interest by two complementary approaches: the quantitative trait loci and the association genetics (GWAS). Ultimately, the results will provide the information needed to implement a new marker-assisted breeding program by Ctifl.
Lheureux, F., Dirlewanger, E. and Anthony, B. (2021). The French walnut improvement program. Acta Hortic. 1318, 1-8
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1318.1
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1318.1
Juglans regia L., genomics, biotechnology, germplasm
English

Acta Horticulturae