Wooden marble: Patterned wood genes discovered in Karelian birch trees

The “marbled” pattern is the main distinguishing feature of the birch growing in KareliaHowever, the pattern on the wood only begins to appear after 8-15 years of its life. The discovery of scientists from Petrozavodsk и St. Petersburg will allow the identification of Karelian birch at the earliest stages of development, which will help in the creation of plantations. 

The cause of the tree's distinctive pattern is one of the main mysteries in the study of Karelian birch. For nearly a hundred years, scientists have developed various hypotheses, including the influence of external factors (viruses or weather) or internal factors (genetics). However, the technical capabilities for a comprehensive study were lacking.

"Now that new-generation, high-resolution equipment has become available, we've been able to conduct such a study. Chromosome 10 proved successful: a region was discovered there that could serve as a DNA marker for patterned wood grain. We strongly suspect that this region contains genes responsible for the patterned texture of wood." — said the chief researcher of the Institute of Forestry of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences Lydia Vetchinnikova.

Since all the trees studied originate from Karelia, the next step for the scientists is to test whether the discovered marker works across the entire distribution of Karelian birch.

Photo: Lidiya Vetchinnikova's archive