Highlights of 2017-2018

• Research Coordinator, Scott Kolpak, took a job as an area geneticist with the USFS, after nine years with the PNWTIRC.
• Susan McEvoy completed the bioinformatics for the western white pine Axiom genotyping array before leaving for graduate school at the University of Connecticut.
• Graduate student, Oguz Urhan, continued his work on developing a rust index for improving resistance to white pine blister rust in western white pine. This is a collaboration with Marc Rust, Richard Sniezko, and others. After performing principal component analysis (PCA) on a variety of rust traits, Oguz found that PC1 and PC2 are good indices of rust resistance, and seem to reflect different rust resistance mechanisms. He showed that rust resistance is highly heritable and that substantial gains in quantitative resistance can be obtained from the eight open-pollinated progeny tests he studied.
• We continue to lay the foundation for an Axiom genotyping array for western white pine. We sequenced RNA samples, producing 66-73 million raw reads. These were combined with existing sequences from the Canadaian Forest Service to improve transcriptome assembly. After assembling the transcriptome using de novo assembly, we discovered ~1.9M potential SNPs using bioinformatic analyses, and designed an Axiom genotyping array.
• PNWTIRC Director, Glenn Howe, continued to serve on the Conifer SNP Consortium (CSC) Executive Committee. The Conifer SNP Consortium will provide a financially feasible pathway for genotyping SNPs in Douglas-fir for applications such as genotype ID and genomic selection.
• The PNWTIRC continues to work with Keith Jayawickrama and Terrance Ye to develop operational approaches for using genomic selection in Douglas-fir breeding programs.
• The PNWTIRC continues to work with the USFS (Brad St.Clair) and Conservation Biology Institute (Nik Stevenson-Molnar and Brendan Ward) on the development and delivery of the Seedlot Selection Tool (SST; https//seedlotselectiontool.org/sst/) and the Species Potential Habitat Tool (SPHT).
• Lauren Magalska (Port Blakely) was elected to continue as the Policy/Technical Committee Chair for the PNWTIRC.

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