Effect of fruit size, parental trees origin and trial conditions on the growth characteristics of European chestnut seedlings

Abstract

In the spring of 2005, a field trial was established in forest nursery Hladomer, near community Lovce, Slovakia with the aim to find out an effect of different origin of fruits on growth characteristics of seedlings. Fruits were collected from twelve half-sib families of European chestnut, grown at an experimental plot in Horné Lefantovce. All studied families originated from old trees grown at four different localities of Slovakia (three half-sib families per locality) and exhibited above-average growth characteristics among all of 120 progenies grown at the experimental plot. Variability of growth characteristics (stem height and stem diameter) of both one- and two-year-old seedlings was significantly affected by their origin (locality of parental tree and half-sib family derived from these trees) and by different nut size used in three trial replications. In three of four studied origins, non significant differences in stem height of one-year-old seedlings between second and third replications changed to significant ones in two-year-old seedlings. These differences were assigned to different light and soil conditions on two trial blocks caused by partial shading of first and second trial blocks. Between weight of fruits and studied growth characteristics either low correlations (for data of individual fruits) or medium strong correlations (data grouped by fruit groups of different weight) were observed. Correlation between stem height means of families and stem height means of one-year-old and/or two-year-old seedlings derived from these progenies was only medium strong (r = 0.52 and 0.54) however similar inter-generation in stem diameter was very low and nonsignificant.