The significance of juvenility for seed orchard management

Abstract

Juvenility and maturity demonstrate that the shoots of an individual tree can exist in more than one relatively stable state. Although the underlying idea is simple, and analagous with puberty in animals, phase-change in forest trees is a complex subject prone to misunderstandings and confusions of terminology. For instance, not every change with age constitutes genuine maturation, as some are easily reversible, including the effects of ageing and branch position. Many flower-inducing treatments have temporary effects on young trees, only accelerated growth and breeding for precocity apparently leading to hastened maturation. The former can bring improvements in seed orchard management, while the latter (although inadvisable for commercial forestry) could produce the miniaturised experimental systems in which the phase status of a shoot apex could be more precisely determined.