Abstract:

Research was carried on the wood properties of 18 provenances of Pinus elliottii in Changle Forest Farm, Zhejiang province. The results showed that there existed significant differences among these provenances in wood air dry density, bending strength, modulus of elasticity (MOE), and compressive strength as well as toughness, tracheid length and width. In tracheid wall thickness and cell walls percentage, there were not significant differences. Meanwhile, there were not significant differences in wood air-dry density, mechanical strength and cell wall percentage of intra provenance. However, the differences in tracheid length and width, and wall thickness of intra provenance were markedly higher than those of inter provenance. As a result, it was probably effective in inter provenance selection according to wood air-dry density, mechanical strength and tracheid morphology, and in intra provenance selection based on the inter provenance selection with reference to tracheid morphology (tracheid length and width, and wall thickness). The broad sense heritabilities for wood tracheid length (0.3615), width (0.5993), wall thickness (0.7473), cell walls percentage (0.1698), wood air-dry density (0.4142), bending strength (0.2646), MOE (0.1082), compressive strength (0.2977), toughness (0.1246), tree height (0.4057) and DBH (0.4747) of 18 provenances were calculated. These results indicated that wood tracheid, wood density and tree growth (except cell wall percentage) were under moderate or low moderate genetic control. So high genetic gains could be gained by inter provenance selection of suitable intension. In addition, this study could provide a base for the selection of pulpwood and building timber after combination evaluation of tree growth, tracheid morphology and mechanical strength.

Key words: Pinus elliottii, Provenance, Wood properties, Genetic variation, Combination evaluation