Juvenile–mature genetic correlations in Pinus radiata D. Don. under different nutrient × water regimes in Spain

Abstract

Individual and family heritabilities and juvenile-mature genetic correlations were estimated for growth and biomass traits recorded in treatment with optimal and limiting water and/or nutrient availability to study how the different growth environments affected genetic parameter estimates. Thirty open-pollinated families, randomly selected among the 58 families used in field progeny tests in Galicia, were cultivated for 30 weeks in a climatic chamber under controlled conditions. Two water regimes (high and low water supply) combined with two nutrient regimes (high and low nutrient supply) were applied by subirrigation. Several growth, branching and dry mass traits were assessed 30 weeks after sowing and compared with field performance (height, diameter and volume) of 4-year-old progeny tests established at three different sites in Galicia (NW Spain). Both the irrigation and the fertilization treatments had a strong effect in all the assessed traits except irrigation for the number of branches. Heritabilities for growth and biomass traits were moderate to high (0.13-0.77) in individual treatments. However, when analyzing all treatments together, the impact of the family 9 treatment interactions led to a reduction (0.20-0.35) in the heritability estimates. The results indicated that the genotype 9 water and genotype 9 nutrient interactions may be important and could not be ignored in the Galician radiata pine breeding program. Climatic chamber-field correlations were different between different traits measured at climatic chamber experiments and the three field tests. The correlations were larger with the wellwatered treatments, suggesting that further development of early testing methods for radiata pine in Galicia should include treatments with no limiting water availability.

Genetic parameters for early growth and biomass traits of Pinus radiata D. Don under different water regimes

“…RSR in WW treatment is different from RSR in WS treatment). Estimates of heritability for most of the traits were generally higher under the wellwatered regime than those under water-stress regime, which is similar to that reported in CODESIDO et al (2012) for young radiata pine seedlings. This may suggest that the genetic expression of these traits was affected by water restriction imposed.…”

“…As far as we know this is the first study in Chile to include heritability estimates of morphological traits for radiata pine seedlings under different watering regimes. CODESIDO et al (2012) also estimated heritability for young radiata pine seedlings in Spain. They found a high value and h 2 for RSR in water stress-low nutrient.…”

Relación de la clorofila y el nitrógeno foliar de Gmelina arborea Roxb. en vivero y en campo

“…De este modo, correlacionar parámetros fisiológicos evaluados en la etapa de vivero con el desarrollo en campo de los genotipos, a partir de la evaluación de ensayos clonales formalmente establecidos ofrece la posibilidad de identificar genotipos con un crecimiento óptimo para áreas de producción forestal continua que, a su vez, sirvan como instrumento para esa selección de clones superiores (Puttonen, 1989;Goswami y Tewari, 2011;Codesido et al, 2012;Ávila et al, 2016); tal es la condición del sitio experimental aquí estudiado.…”

“…Al asumir posibles diferencias en el contenido de clorofila entre clones en la etapa de vivero y en campo, se puede establecer una relación entre ambos ámbitos que permitiría identificar genotipos como superiores, desde etapas tempranas en el vivero (Mattsson, 1996;Codesido et al, 2012). Así, se dispondría de información técnico-científica para decidir la incorporación o exclusión de genotipos a conjuntos clonales que formen parte de programas de mejoramiento genético (Mattsson, 1996), y con ello aumentar la precisión de la información que sustente paquetes silvícolas de producción continua e intensiva.…”

The feasibility of adding wood quality traits as selection criteria in the Galician Pinus pinaster Aiton breeding program: case study

“…To estimate the juvenile-mature correlations, we used the same families at different ages in the trials, as other authors have done (Williams and Megraw 1994;Harfouche 2003; Zas et al 2004;Codesido et al 2012). This approach avoids the autocorrelation bias (Williams and Megraw 1994) and is more conservative, since different environments could reduce both heritability and juvenile-mature correlations (Bentzer et al 1989;Sonesson et al 2002).…”