A Perfect Christmas Tree?
That will be great!
Some people spend weeks looking for the right Christmas tree. In Copenhagen, Danish scientists are mapping the genome of the conifer for the first time. They hope to use the data to breed the perfect Christmas tree.
Danish researcher Pär Ingvarsson had his Christmas tree a long time before Christmas. As always, it is a nice spruce tree. At Christmastime, the plant geneticist simply takes his research home. Ingvarsson’s goal is to map the genome of the humble Christmas tree.
A foundation has given Ingvarsson and his team €7 million to sequence the tree’s genome. If they are successful, it will be the world’s first decryption of a coniferous tree’s genetic make-up. Up until now only one other tree has had its DNA sequenced: the balsam poplar.
