Genetic variation in growth and typhoon resistance in Eucalyptus pellita in south-western China

Abstract

Summary In a Eucalyptus pellita provenance-family trial established in coastal south-western Guangdong province in China, 244 open-pollinated families representing one provenance from Indonesia, two from Papua New Guinea and 11 from Australia were evaluated for typhoon resistance at age 3 y and for survival and growth up to age 5 y. Significant differences were found among both provenances and families-within-provenances for all parameters. Provenances from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea had good early growth and survival but were markedly inferior for the typhoon resistance traits of stem lean and breakage following a major typhoon at age 3 y. Overall survival to age 5 y was 50% and provenance means ranged from 25% (S of Kiriwo, PNG) to 66% (NW Kuranda, Qld). Overall means for diameter at breast height over bark (dbh) and plot basal areas (BAs) at 5 y were 12.8 cm and 3.36 m2 ha−1 respectively, with provenance mean dbh ranging from 11.6 cm (Starcke Station, Qld) to 14.1 cm (Mossman, Qld) and provenance mean plot BA ranging from 1.55 (Serisa Village and S of Kiriwo, Western Province, Papua New Guinea) to 4.63 m2ha−1' (Wonga-Daintree, Qld). For both typhoon resistance and plot BA, all of the Queensland provenances performed well and were superior to the Papua New Guinean and Indonesian provenances. Within-provenance individual tree heritability estimates obtained for height and dbh at various ages of up to 5 y were moderate and ranged from 0.19 to 0.31 (assuming a mean coefficient of relationship of 0.4 for open-pollinated families of E. pellita). Genetic and phenotypic correlations between growth traits and between the same traits at different ages were moderate to high. Those between growth traits and typhoon resistance traits were low to moderate.