Abstract
Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis (Sénécl) Barr. & Golf. is a tropical pine that naturally occurs in lowland areas of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and eastern Mexico. It has been one of the most studied tropical pines and the one with the most commercial importance in Brazil. The objective of this work was to select the best provenances for plantations and best trees in families for the establishment of seed orchards. For that a trial with five provenances and 47 open-pollinated families was planted near Planaltina, Federal District, in the Cerrado Region of Brazil. The provenances tested were Poptun (Guatemala), Gualjoco, Los Limones, El Porvenir and Santa Cruz de Yojoa (Honduras) and assessed at 12 years of age. Poptun and Gualjoco had larger volume, and Los Limones and El Porvenir the lowest incidence of forks and foxtails. Individual tree heritabilities for volume, stem form and branch diameter were 0.34, 0.06, and 0.26 respectively. More than 90% of the trees had defects, common in unimproved P. caribaea. Selection criteria for quality traits need to be relaxed in the first generation of breeding to allow for larger genetic gains in productivity. Results from this test compared with P. caribaea var. hondurensis trials in other Brazilian, Colombian and Venezuelan sites suggest that provenance x site and family x site interactions are not as strong as in other pine species.
Highlights
Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis (Sénécl) Barr. & Golf. is a tropical pine that occurs in lowland areas of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and in one location in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico
This paper reports on the growth, heritability, and expected genetic gain from selections in the P. caribaea var. hondurensis material at Planaltina and discusses the performance of similar material planted in other areas of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela
The average survival of P. caribaea var. hondurensis at Planaltina was 94% and there were no significant differences among provenances
Summary
Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis (Sénécl) Barr. & Golf. is a tropical pine that occurs in lowland areas of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and in one location in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The largest plantation area of P. caribaea is in Venezuela where approximately 600,000 ha have been established and 30,000 ha are planted annually. In Brazil, up to the 1980’s, more than 50,000 hectares were planted with this species of which, more than 50% was in the Cerrado Region (Golfari et al, 1978), during the period of fiscal incentives for forestry programs. The Cerrado is a savanna that covers an area of 204 million hectares or approximately 25% of the Brazilian territory. The climate in the Cerrado is mostly tropical. It has an average rainfall varying from 750 to 2,000 mm/year and, over most of the region, it ranges between 1,100 and 1,600 mm (Eiten, 1990)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
