Yingnan Chen;Huaitong Wu;Xiaogang Dai;Weiqiang Li;Qin Yu;Yonghua Yang;Tongming Yi

Nanjing Forestry University;Institute for Plant Molecular Biology, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China;Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Biotechnology of Educational Department of China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Sivilcultural Sciences of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China;Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Biotechnology of Educational Department of China, Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Sivilcultural Sciences of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of Chin

Sex effect;Wood quality;Growth performance;Marker-aided selection;Sex discrimination;DIOECIOUS SHRUB;GENDER;CONSEQUENCES;DIMORPHISM;RATIO

Abstract Sex has a significant effect on various traits among dioecious plants. In this analysis of the sex effect on the radial growth and wood density of numerous 20-year-old trees of Populus deltoides growing in a common garden, male trees performed better than the females in radial growth, but sex did not significantly affect wood density. Growth rate and wood density were weakly negatively correlated. Sex selection is also critical for controlling seed-hair pollution from P. deltoides plantations. However, because the juvenile period of P. deltoides lasts for years, a reliable technique to determine the sex of juveniles has been needed. Here we developed a marker-aided technique to discriminate the sexes of P. deltoides seedlings. This study provides essential information on target traits and a highly desirable genetic toolkit for accelerate breeding programs for this important tree species.