General Combination Ability of Common Pine (Pinus Sylvestris L.) оn Seminal Gardens

Abstract

Procedure of selection is described on general combination ability (GCA) in the tests of posterity 910 trees. 1425 variants and 41.7 thousand descendants were tested to age 3–18. Tests were completed for four harvests of seed in six tests in the different environments. Tests had the stages and in every next harvest the variants minimized gradually. GCA was expected on combinations from any two harvests (GCA-2) and on all four harvests of seed (GCA-4). The coefficients of correlation of GCA-2 with GCA-4 on the average were high (0.74±0.03). At such level of connections, before taking the third crop it is possible to conduct the selection of source trees and to reduce their number and the number of test plantings by half if GCA-2 at a tree will appear on the average no less than 108 %. During such selection there will be some losses of source trees with high future ОКС (about 10 %). A maximal value GCA-4 at too gardens was 119 and 122 %.

Keywords

• free pollination
• posterity
• selection of seed source trees
• testing