Canadian Forest Service Publications
Estimation of clonal contribution to cone and seed crops in a Sitka spruce seed orchard. 1993. Chaisurisri, K.; El-Kassaby, Y.A. Annales des Sciences Forestières (Paris) 50: 461-467.
Year: 1993
Issued by: National Capital Region
Catalog ID: 10810
Language: English
Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Abstract
The relationship between reproductive energy and reproductive success and its impact on parental balance were studied in a clonal Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong) Carr) seed orchard over 2 crop-years. Parental reproductive output and effective femal population number estimates gave a good indication of the parental imbalance in the orchard crops, nowever, they did not show the existing differences in reproductive energy and reproductive success among the studied clones. Parental balance estimates based on seed data were more accurate than those based on cone counts. The orchard's parental balance showed consistent improvement over time. Two management options, namely, supplemental-mass-pollination and harvesting the cone crop by subsets of cone production level, were proposed to alleviate parental imbalance.