Dormancy and cold hardiness in forest tree seedlings (COLDTREE)

 

Summary

COLDTREE is a multi-disciplinary EU funded programme which aims to produce techniques and tools to improve nursery practice and logistics. It is a first step towards the development of molecular diagnostic tests for cost efficient reforestation and nursery logistics.

For lifting and indoor storage of forest tree seedlings, it is of vital importance to be able to determine the peak physiological condition. The COLDTREE project, which is co-funded by the EC, aims at unraveling the molecular mechanisms involved in winter hardening in woody plants as a first step towards the development of tools for rapid and reliable determination of the physiological condition of these seedlings. We use cDNA microarrays as a tool to monitor expressional changes in response to temperature and day length triggers.

Participants include molecular biologists, ecophysiologists, commercial tree nurseries and software engineers.

Research objectives

• To identify genes and molecular pathways involved in the onset and release of winter hardiness and dormancy in woody species using cDNA microarrays and to postulate a conceptual model describing the molecular events underlying these processes
• To select a set of key genes, of which the expression patterns can be used to describe the various stages of dormancy and hardiness
• To evaluate the merits of these key genes as molecular diagnostic tool for nursery practice and improved forestation.

Funders and partners

The European Union - Framework Programme FP5, and institutes of the countries involved fund this programme. Partners in the project include research groups from the Netherlands, UK, Denmark and Sweden.
EU COLDTREE project description

Forest Research involvement

Forest Research is the co-ordinator for the UK work in the COLDTREE programme. We have investigated dormancy and cold tolerance in pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Beech (Fagus sylvatica), using ecophysiological assessment techniques, over three years, both in the field and under controlled environment conditions.  We have extracted gene material (RNA) for analysis by colleagues in the Netherlands, and are currently testing ‘target gene’ technology in our lab, using RT_PCR.

Status

Programme will be completed during 2005.

Contact

Dr Mike Perks
Forest Research
Northern Research Station
Roslin
Midlothian EH25 9SY

Tel: 0131 445 2176
Fax: 0131 445 5124
Email: mike.perks@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

EU contract details

Co-ordinator: Dr Monique van Wordragen, Agricultural Research Department Agrotechnological Research Institute, PO-box 17, 6700 AA  Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Email: Monique.vanwordragen@wur.nl

Contract: QLRT-2000-00135, Quality of Life & Management of Living Resources, FP5.