Evaluation of pollen contamination in an advanced scots pine seed orchard

Abstract

The pollination pattern in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) seed orchard consisting of 28 clones was studied using nine microsatellite (SSR) loci. The nine SSR loci produced unique multilocus genotypes for each of the orchard's 28 clones and allowed paternal assignment of the studied 305 seed using paternity exclusion probability of 99.9%. Fifty two percent of the studied seeds were sired by outside the orchard pollen sources (i.e., pollen contamination) and as expected, low selfing (2.3 %) was detected. These results are valuable for the evaluation of the seed orchard function and the impact of contamination on the expected genetic gain.