Evaluation of seed production of scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) clonal seed orchard with cone analysis method

Abstract

This research was carried out to investigate seed production in a 13 years-old scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) clonal seed orchard, including 30 clones. Eight of cone and seed traits as number of fertile and infertile scales, cone volume, cone number, filled and empty seed number, seed efficiency and 1000 seed weight were studied. Significant differences existed between the clones in all traits. The overall mean of fertile scale number was 30.1 with a range of 19.8 to 42.2 among the clones while infertile scale number was 41.1 with a range of 34.1 to 51.5. Overall mean of filled seed number, empty seed number and filled seed percentage was 11.6, 15.0 and 43.6%, respectively. The cone number and cone volume varied 33.4 to 287.88 and 6.6 to 18.2 cm3 among the clones, respectively. The average seed efficiency for all clones was rather low and 17.9%. The overall mean of 1000 seed weight was found 10.9 g with a range of 8.6 to 13.2 g. As to 1000 seed weight and filled seed number values, 0.68-19.33 kg of filled seeds per hectare varying among the clones can be produced in this orchard. The cluster dendrogram produced two groups; 18, 27, 26, 30 numbered clones in the first group and the others. © 2008 Academic Journals.