Farm Forestry New ZealandAssessment of NZDFI’s 2011 Eucalyptus quadrangulata breeding populations
By Monika Sharma, Clemens Altaner, February 2022.
Download SWP-T144 (pdf)
Executive summary
This report concerns the phenotyping of NZDFI’s 2011 E. quadrangulata breeding populations at McNeil and Cuddon for heartwood. Genetic analysis of the trials was hampered by the small number of families (~20). Larger E. quadrangulata breeding trials including ~80 additional families were established in 2016 and will be phenotyped in due course.
Analysis indicate that heartwood diameter and sapwood diameter were genetically correlated between sites. Heartwood diameter was not genetically correlated to tree diameter (DBH or core length) but negatively to sapwood diameter. This would suggest that neither DBH nor core length can be used as proxy to select for heartwood quantity.
Genetic control of heartwood quality (i.e. predicted extractive content) was inconclusive. The small number of families and the generally low heartwood extractive content contributed to the larger uncertainty in these values.
Families from these trials were previously ranked for form, growth and growth strain based on assessments in the Cuddon, NZRC Paparoa and Woodville trials (SWP-T120). Some families recommended for propagation in that report matched families performing well for heartwood traits. In particularly family 518 seems to be performing well in all traits.
The data has been made available to the industry to select appropriate genotypes for commercial production.
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