Mission and Project Goals

The SMarTForests project built on a decade of research discoveries in spruce genomics by previous projects: Arborea, led by Laval University and Treenomix, led by the University of British Columbia. These groups developed extensive background knowledge and know-how to enable the SMarTForests research. Our mission was, firstly, to break new ground in spruce genome sequencing and strongly represent Canada in international conifer genome initiatives, and secondly, to achieve efficient translation of results toward end users from across Canada. The SMarTForests team members joined forces and integrated their activities to support this mission. The project started on July 1, 2011 and was completed on June 30, 2015.

The SMarTForests project had three major goals:

1. Develop marker systems
2. Sequence the white spruce genome (public sequence data access)
3. Analyze impacts of forest genomics

For a quick overview of our project plan, please consult the lay summary and the executive summary from our final report. For more details, please refer to the Project Overview, Publications and News and Events.

The SMarTForests project was funded by Genome Canada, Genome Quebec, Genome BC, and Genome Alberta.