Planting a famous spruce

Today a very special spruce was planted in the Botanical Garden in Uppsala.

 

In 2013 researchers mapped the gene sequence of Norway spruce (the Christmas tree). It was the largest genome to have ever been mapped and the project was led by Umeå Plant Science Centre and SciLifeLab.

This was a milestone in many ways. Not only does the Norway spruce have huge economic and ecological importance, the genome is also complex and seven times larger than that of humans. The results were published in the journal Nature.

In order to perform this project 100 twigs from the same tree were engrafted to form clones that were used for sequencing. In February 2015 one of these clones were given to SciLifeLab from Umeå Plant Science Centre, via Stefan Jansson who worked in the sequencing project. In May 2015 the spruce was donated by SciLifeLab to the Botanical Garden in Uppsala, and today it was planted. You can visit the tree in the south part of the garden named Blomväxternas släktträd.

Read more about the spruce at Botanical Garden’s website

Read the press release about the sequencing of the tree in 2013

 

Karin Forsberg Nilsson (SciLifeLab) and Tomas Zicha (Botanical Garden) planting the tree

 

The tree

 

 Karin Forsberg Nilsson (SciLifeLab) watering the plant

 

Visit the tree in the Botanical Garden