Genome assembly of Corylus americana

Modern breeding methods (e.g, marker-assisted selection, and genomic prediction) are greatly aided by a high-quality reference genome assembly used for identifying and aligning genetic polymorphisms across experimental and breeding populations. We therefore set out to develop the first chromosome-scale reference assembly for C. americana, using two accessions, "Rush" and "Winkler", which have been historically widely used in hazelnut breeding in the Eastern United States.