La sélection participative en France : des plantes annuelles aux ligneux

Breeding good varieties of uncommon forest species may be achieved through a lengthy, expensive conventional breeding programme. For some annual plants and tropical forest species, participatory breeding or domestication achieves good results and better dissemination of the varieties. This approach was initiated in France taking the wild cherry tree as a model, for which there are many existing schemes and cultivars that can be used as controls to evaluate the varieties and select new individuals while fine-tuning the methodology. The model can be applied to other species: we show that the wild cherry tree controls may be used for other species when soil and climate requirements are similar. Highly intensive breeding in nurseries would rapidly enable seed orchards to be set up