Inheritance Of Wood Specific Gravity And Its Genetic Correlation With Growth Traits In Young Pinus Brutia Progenies

In long term, to discover the genes responsible for wood production, genetic control of wood specific gravity (WSG) in Pinus brutia Ten. (Turkish red pine) open pollinated Ceyhan progeny trial, which was established with the seeds collected from 168 clones originated from six clonal Turkish red pine seed orchards was studied. Wood samples were taken by destructive sampling during the rouging of this trial at the age of seven. Specifically

(1) to examine the magnitude of family differences and its components for wood specific gravity (WSG) and growth traits (height, diameter and stem volume)

(2) to determine WSG inheritance and its genetic correlation with growth traits

and (3) to estimate breeding values of 168 families for the WSG and to predict genetic gain if selection is based on phenotypic, rouged and genotypic seed orchard by reselecting the best parents with respect to WSG. Differences among the 168 families for mean WSG was large (ranged from 0.35 to 0.44), as indicated by high individual (0.42+0.07) and family mean (0.55+0.03) heritabilities. Family differences and high heritabilities were also observed for all growth traits. Genetic correlations between WSG and growth traits were statistically insignificant (near zero), while low and insignificant negative phenotypic correlations among the same traits were observed. Realized genetic gain for single trait selection at age seven was insignificant (0.37 %) for WSG and 8.4 % for stem volume in phenotypic seed orchards. Average genetic gain in breeding zone after roguing, by leaving the best 20 clones in each seed orchard, reached 1.7 % for WSG and 16.1 % for stem volume. Genetic gain (relative to controls) at the age of seven obtained from the first generation genotypic seed orchards consisting the best 30 clones was estimated 5.2 % for WSG and 35 % for stem volume. Multi-trait selection was also proposed in this study for the same traits. Selection of best 10 families for the highest WSG and stem volume breeding values produce 5.6 % genetic gain for WSG and 27.7 % genetic gain for stem volume. For the future, the 168 families with known phenotypic and genotypic values regarding to WSG will be screened for the genes responsible for wood production.