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Western redcedar (WRC) contributes over $1 billion annually to British Columbia’s economy. As the timber supply shifts from high-volume old-growth to lower-volume second-growth forests, WRC faces mounting challenges driven by climate change. Rising temperatures, drought, and increasing pressure from pests and pathogens are impacting forest health across the landscape.

To address these challenges, the CEDaR B2 project expanded upon previous genomic selection (GS) efforts by screening for two critical traits: resistance to deer browsing and foliar fungal disease. Deer browsing causes severe, often irreversible damage to young trees, while current protective measures—such as plastic cone covers—cost the industry over $6 million annually and are neither sustainable nor scalable. Meanwhile, foliar diseases like cedar leaf blight significantly reduce growth, and no effective silviculture tools currently exist to combat them.

Successful establishment of young WRC trees requires cost-effective, environmentally sustainable solutions to minimize early damage from browsing and disease. By applying GS models, desirable traits can be identified at the seedling stage, reducing the breeding cycle from 20 years to just two. This accelerates genetic gains and adds considerable value to the WRC breeding program.

Due to WRC’s early flowering, unique evolutionary history, and genetic complexity, it stands to benefit more than most species from molecular breeding. Using advanced metabolomic profiling, over 2,100 tree samples from the Nimpkish and Cowichan Clonal Training populations (CCTP) were analyzed. Additionally, a novel screening system for foliar disease resistance was developed and is now actively used by the BC Ministry of Forests to identify resistant clones.