Economic importance, breeding objectives and achievements
Résumé
This chapter reviews the historical context, economic importance, objectives and achievements to-date for many of the more important conifers undergoing domestification throught genetic improvement programs around the world. These provide examples of the context in which genomic technologies will have an impact in forestry. Unlike many other crop plants and livestock animals, forest trees have only been exposed to a few cycles of breeding and selection, and most retain very large amounts of genetic variation in natural populations. These factors present both opportunities and hurdles in the effective application of genomic technologies to existing operational breeding programs.