Salix suchowensis Genome sequencing

We provide here the draft genome of a shrub willow (Salix suchowensis). S. xuzhouensis is an annual flowering shrub willow, which is amenable for genetic manipulation and its natural populations also display high genetic diversity and are likely to contain many low-frequency alleles that underlie outstanding phenotypes useful to breeders. Especially, it is easy to carry out large scale field trial. It is a desirable species to uncover the genetic factors underlying the woody plants specific traits due to the short juvenile period, the small individual size and the moderate genome size. With genome sequences available both in willows and poplars, these important resources will play fundamental roles in the functional genomics studies for trees in Salicaceae, and especially useful in uncovering the major genes that control the domestication traits for biomass production and wood formation both in willows and poplars.