Genetic Variation and Comprehensive Assessment in Wood Properties of 15 Fmilies of Pinus elliottii

The main wood properties of 15 families of Pinus elliottii in Changle Forest Farm,Zhejiang Province were carried out. The results showed that there existed significant differences among these families in wood air-dry density, bending strength, modulus of elasticity, compressive strength, tracheid length, tracheid width as well as tracheid wall thickness, but in cell walls percentage and toughness, there were not significant differences,although the differences in tracheid length, tracheid width and wall thickness of intra-families were higher than those of inter-families. There were no significant differences in air-dry density, compressive strength cell wall percentage and toughness for intra-families. As a result, it was probably effective in inter-families selection according to wood air-dry density, mechanical strength and tracheid morphology. The broad-sense heritabilities for wood tracheid length (0.5466), width (0.3910),wall thickness (0.7173), cell walls percentage(0.159 8) of 15 familis were calculated, these results indicated that wood tracheid morphology (except cell walls percentage) were under morderate or low-morderate genetic control, so high genetic gains could be gained by inter-families selection of suitable intension. By means of comprehensive assessment,the results were as following: 04-2806-1706-2008-7 and 08-9 families were more suitable for use of pulpwood, 04-2504-2806-1706-20 and 08-16 families were more suitable for utilization of construction timber.