Patterns of genotype-by-environment interaction in diameter at breast height at age 3 for eucalypt hybrid clones grown for reafforestation of lands affected by salinity

Abstract

The commercial viability of plantations established for the recovery of saline lands may be supported by the deployment of improved genetic material matched to these particularly challenging environments. Patterns of genotype-by-environment interaction were investigated in a highly unbalanced data set of diameter at breast height at approximately 3 years for a total of 841 genotypes from ten Eucalyptus camaldulensis × Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus camaldulensis × Eucalyptus grandis hybrid families assessed across 21 trials grown on a range of saline and non-saline low rainfall sites from southeast Queensland through central NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and southeast South Australia to southwest Western Australia using factor-analytic mixed-model methods. There was significant heterogeneity among trials in estimates of family variance, genotype-within-family variance, the ratio of family variance to total genetic variance and individual broad-sense heritability. Cluster analyses indicated that family effects were highly correlated across a main group of 19 trials and that most trials fell into two major groups for genotype-within-family effects, with an average correlation among trials within these groups of 0.55. There was, however, no obvious geographical or other explanation for the patterns, suggesting that genotypes should be deployed on the basis of broad-scale adaptation.