Genetic Parameters of the Characters of the Provenance Seedling of Phellodendron chinense from Hunan Province and the Efficiency of Correlative Selection Using Those Parameters

The genetic parameters of 20 characters were analyzed for 11 provenances of one-year-old Phellodendron chinense seedlings from Hunan Province,and the efficiency of correlative selection was assessed.The genetic characters are grouped into 4 types:young seedling,compound leaf,above-ground growth and productivity.Analysis shows that the variations of 17 characters among different provenances are significant,and that the variations of the productivity characters are higher than those of the other 3 types of characters.The heritabilities of the young seedling,compound leaf,above-ground growth generally were over 0.5, and were greater than that of productivity characters.The phenotypic and genetic correlations among the above-ground growth or productivity characters,and between them are significant,which have provided a theoretical basis for correlative selection for the production growth and productivity for P.chinense seedlings.The efficiencies of selection for the biomass of bark and roots using the seedling height increased by 16.1% and 62.9%,respectively;and the efficiencies of selection for the biomass of bark and roots using the diameter of the stem base increased by 24.5% and 103.8%,respectively.The efficiencies of selection for the biomass of seedling bark and roots using the height of seedling or the diameter of the stem base are higher than that of direction selection.