FERTILITY VARIATION IN TWO POPULATIONS OF TAURUS CEDAR (CEDRUS LIBANI RICH.)

Abstract

Fertility variation, measured as half-sib family coefficient, based on number of one, two and three years cones were investigated in plantation population (PP), and a natural population (NP) of Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani Rich.) sampled from southern part of Turkey. Fertility variation was higher in PP than NP for one, two and three years. It was the highest in PP for one year cones (2.34), while it was lowest in NP for three years cones (1.73) as shown in Table 2. The effective number of parents were 21.8 (38.4% of census number) for one year cones, 25.7 (47.9% of census number) for two years cones and 29.8 (52.6% of census number) for three cones in PP. On the other hand the effective number of parents were 28.3 (43.4% of census number) for one year cones, 32.8 (51.6% of census number) for two years cones and 36.4 (58.9% of census number) for three years cones in NP. Diameter at breast height and tree crown area had positive and significant (p<0.05) effective on cone production, while effects of tree height and tree age were not significant (NS) on that (Table 3). There were also positive and significant (p<0.05) correlation between years in cone production.