GENETIC VARIATION AND FAMILY SELECTION ON COLD HARDINESS OF CHINESE FIR SEEDLINGS

Seeds selected from 73 Chinese Fir families in ten provinces or regions were tested at Fuyang of Zhejiang and Yantai of Shandong for investigation on cold hardiness of Chinese Fir seedlings and selection of the families with cold resistance.The results are as follows: (1) Variations in the rates of freeze and terminal bud,and height of seedlings were very significant among families,and it was found that there were evident interactions between the two experimental sites on the three traits.There was a high negative genetics correlation between the rates of freeze injury and terminal bud,and both characters were slightly corrlated with the height growth of seedlings.(2) There were evident variations in the rates of freeze injury and terminal bud among zones,in which the rate of freeze injury was gradually reduced from the south to the north,whereas the rate of terminal bud was to the contrary;the genetic variance component of provenances outweighed that of families within provenances in the two properties.(3) There was a comparatively high heritability in the rates of freeze injury and terminal bud of seedlings.(4) By means of selecting the rates of freeze injury and terminal bud,15 families with better cold hardiness were obtained,which mostly came from the north of central subtropical zone.