Variability in growth characteristics for different genotypes of Eucalyptus tereticornis (SM.)

Abstract

Eighteen clones of Eucalyptus tereticornis (Sm.) were evaluated for three years by adopting randomized block design for various growth parameters at Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India and compared with two checks. Significant variations were recorded for height, diameter at breast height (DBH) and clear bole height (CBH). The broad sense heritability was low to moderate for both height and CBH. The genetic gain for height and CBH increased substantially per se with the increase in age of trees. The average genetic gain for three years was recorded maximum for height (159.60%) followed by DBH (110.97%) and CBH (70.34%). Clone 17 attained maximum DBH over other genotypes for second and third year followed by clones 14 and 11. Clone 5 showed an upward trend for DBH and maintained its superiority for CBH as the age of the tree increased. Similarly, clone 11 changed its ranking from 9th to 8th to 3rd for DBH and from 9th to 4th to 2nd for CBH, respectively for the age of one, two and three years. Nonetheless, clones 6 and 10 performed poorly for all the characters studied. Clones 17, 14 and 5 were found to be the most promising clones for commercial deployment.