Relationships between wood density components and juvenile height growth and growth rhythm traits for Norway spruce provenances and families
1999
Skroppa, T. | Hylen, G. | Dietrichson, J.
Measurements of heights at ages 2, 4 and 7 years and of flushing, early shoot elongation and lammas growth at age 7 years were made in nurseries and in a short-term trial with seedlings from provenances and open pollinated families of Picea abies. Fifteen of the provenances and 45 of the families were planted in a long-term field trial. At age 29 years from seed, basic wood density and its components: earlywood and latewood density and latewood percentage from increment cores were measured by X-ray analysis. The trees of the northern provenances, which were the shortest ones, had the earliest growth start and the lowest proportion of trees with lammas growth, and had also the highest wood density and proportion of latewood. Moderate to strong negative relationships were found between the wood density traits and early height growth and growth rhythm traits, suggesting that the latter ones could be good predictors of provenance differences in wood density. For the families, much weaker and in most cases non-significant phenotypic correlations were found between the two groups of traits. The genetic correlation coefficients were in most cases negative and had low absolute values. The possible causes of the differences in relationship patterns between provenances and families are discussed.
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