ORIGINAL ARTICLE Establishment of full-sib families in Shorea platyclados using paternity analysis: an alternative to controlled pollination Chin-Hong Ng • Soon-Leong Lee • Kevin Kit-Siong Ng • Chai-Ting Lee • Norwati Muhammad Received: 10 March 2011 / Accepted: 11 July 2011 / Published online: 21 October 2011 Ó The Japanese Forest Society and Springer 2011 Abstract Full-sib families are produced from artificially controlled pollination in tree breeding. This mating design is, however, very costly and logistically difficult as most tree species are large in size. With the development of molecular markers, known relationships among the off- spring could be established from the maximum likelihood in paternity analysis. In this study, we successfully estab- lished full-sib families on the basis of paternity analysis of offspring derived from two Shorea platyclados seed par- ents from the natural forest. A total of 2,049 and 970 off- spring were collected from two mother trees M01 and M06, respectively. Potential pollen donors surrounding the mother trees were sampled, specifically a total of 77 adult trees within the 10-ha plot for M01 and 28 adult trees within the 4-ha plot for M06. For mother tree M01, par- entage was assigned to 45.4% of the offspring at the 95% confidence level with 59 full-sib families established. For mother tree M06, parentage was assigned to 19.9% of the offspring at the 95% confidence level with 19 full-sib families established. The establishment of full-sib families in S. platyclados enables breeding in dipterocarp tree species, once a decade-long proposition, to become more efficient in a cost-saving manner. Keywords Breeding Á Full-sib families Á Microsatellites Á Paternity Á Shorea platyclados Introduction The availability of a full-sib family for a tree species can be used to conduct genetic tests in most tree breeding pro- grammes (White et al. 2007). The relative genetic values of parents can be estimated on the basis of the performances of their offspring. Parent trees whose offspring perform well must have good breeding values and are likely to be selected in the breeding population. Conventionally, a full- sib family is created by controlled pollination to transfer pollen from one tree to the receptive female reproductive organs of another tree. To conduct controlled pollination in dipterocarps is not easy because it is cumbersome and difficult to reach the inflorescences which are borne on branches or ends of twigs (Appanah and Chan 1982). Apart from the logistics, the irregularity of flowering, the often short blooming period and the generally small size of flowers lend difficulties for controlled pollination to be carried out. The majority of dipterocarps flower at multi- year intervals of 2–10 years and bloom for a period of about 3 months (Symington 1943). The hermaphroditic nature of the dipterocarp flowers necessitates emasculation of bagged flowers scheduled for controlled pollination (Chan 1981). Therefore, the extensive effort and cost involved in controlled pollination have proved highly daunting in tree breeding programmes. From the literature, only a few efforts to carry out controlled pollination in dipterocarps were reported in the 1980s (Chan 1981; Appanah and Chan 1982). No further study in controlled pollination has been carried out since the 1980s and no attempt to produce full-sib families in dipterocarps for breeding purposes has been made until the recent avail- ability of molecular marker technology. The premise is to use parentage analysis based on molecular markers to establish known relationships and subsequently form the C.-H. Ng (&) Á S.-L. Lee Á K. K.-S. Ng Á C.-T. Lee Á N. Muhammad Genetic Laboratory, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, 52109 Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia e-mail: chinhong@frim.gov.my 123 J For Res (2012) 17:479–487 DOI 10.1007/s10310-011-0318-x