interclonal variability of siberian pine in the mountain Altai

¹Terekhov M.A, ¹Yurkin S.V., ²Ilichev Y.N, ³Chankina O.V, ³Kutsenogy K.P.

¹The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Altai republic, Russia info@kpr.gorny.ru

²West-Sibireain Office of the Institute of Forest, SB RAS, Russia zapsibfilial@yandex.ru

³Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion, SB RAS, Russia koutsen@kinetics.nsc.ru

The study was carried out in the Altai Republic (Russia), where we chose 495 ha of genetic reserves, 86 ha of plus stands and 438 plus trees of Siberian pine Pinus sibirica Du Tour. We used different selection criteria to choose the key study plantations: intensity of seed production, the trunk growth rate and quality, as well as resin production. By using plus-tree offspring 89 ha of clonal seed orchards and 11 ha of archive-maternal plantations were established 20-30 years ago. Most of the plantations are located in the Teletskoye Forestry (the Altai republic, Russia).

To ensure the continuity of the selection process and to select trees with best genotypes it is necessary to carry out the genetic identification and passportization of the clones (by checking the accuracy of marking their breeding histories) and to assess their variability in properties under selection and others. In the clonal archive plantation established in 1982-84 we studied about 100 ramets of 22 clones of the plus-trees, selected according to their seed productivity.

At the time of the study the mean height of the trees was 5.5 m, trunk diameter at the human chest’s level was about 9.5 cm, and the width of the crown was 2.5 m. The trees had already begun to produce seeds, but the production rate had not yet reached the industrial rate. We carried out morphometric studies of mature cones, seeds, needles, as well as the elemental composition of needles, cones and soil under the studied trees. The authors are thankful to Dr. Tarakanov V.V. for his help in statistical analysis of the obtained data.

The analysis reveled that the Siberian pine clones differed significantly in many variables. For example, the contribution of interclonal variance in the total variance of needle length reached 70% (Table), which is higher than the respective value for the Scots pine clones from the neighboring plantations. We concluded that the archive plantations of the plus-tree clones of Siberian pine preserve and maintain substantial genetic variability of many features and properties, including the chemical ones. So the studied plantations may be regarded as gene banks to be used for targeted selection, including selection for esthetic purposes, e.g. long needles, and geochemical peculiarities.

The study was supported by SB RAS Integration Grant 5.23.

Table

The effect of clones (%), estimated by ANOVA of the morphometric characteristics of Scots and Siberian pines from plantations in the Altai Republic (Russia)

Species	N	Trunk diameter	Needle length	Needle weight
Scots pine	62	43.2***	46.7*	46.2*
Siberian pine	102	58.7***	70.5***	55.1***

* - P < 0.05; *** - P < 0.001.