2011, 24(5): 663-667.
Combining ability of seedling height and shoot elongation parameters for the third generation germplasm of Pinus massoniana were investigated with a 6×6 half diallel cross design, and the parents were selected from the second generation breeding population. The result showed that the net increment of initiation phase, linear phase and later phase of seedling height took 22.82%, 59.05% and 18.13% of the total increment respectively, the increment at linear growth stage played a decisive role in the total increment of seedling height. The result of combining ability showed that, except for total linear growth (TLG), there were not significant differences in general combining ability (GCA) of seedling height, maximum growth rate (MGR), linear growth day (LGD) and linear growth rate (LGR), but for specific combining ability (SCA), except for LGD, there existed significant differences in seedling height, MGR, TLG and LGR, and the dominant gene effect was predominant over the additive gene effect. The reason for this seemed to be that the indirect selection of GCA had been made on mating parents. Compared to the second generation germplasm, which the mating parents had been indirect selected on GCA, the change was little for genetic control model of this trait in the third generation germplasm, and only the variance component of SCA increased to a certain extent.