Page 40 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

Genome-based biotechnology for sustainable forestry
Zander Myburg, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, and FABI
Natural and planted forests are under threat worldwide due to climate change and associated biotic and abiotic stresses; at the same time, woody biomass from forest trees is gaining importance as a renewable feedstock for a bio-based economy providing alternatives to fossil carbon-derived materials and chemicals. Understanding and mobilising genome diversity in forest trees provides an avenue to develop new sustainable woody biomass crops, while deciphering the genetics of tree growth, development, defence and adaptation.
South Africa produces most of its timber, pulp and paper from only one percent of its land base. This is due in large part to some of the best tree breeding programmes globally and excellent genetic gains achieved by SA tree breeders over the past decades. Professor Zander Myburg is the Director of the Forest Molecular
Zander Myburg is the 2018 recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Research.
Genetics (FMG) Programme in FABI. Together with colleagues Professors Eshchar Mizrachi and Sanushka Naidoo and Dr Steven Hussey,
his research team is developing biotechnology applications further to enhance genetic improvement of South African plantation forests.
The FMG DNA Marker Analysis Platform provides high-throughput DNA research services to the SA forestry
industry. In 2018, the platform reached the milestone of having produced DNA profiles for over
50 000 Eucalyptus and pine trees,
the bulk of the breeding stock for plantation forestry in the country. This technology is now widely accessed by tree breeders for DNA fingerprinting, parentage analysis, species discrimination, genetic resource management and gene conservation.
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