The genetic correlation between air-dried density and basic density in Eucalyptus nitens wood cores

Abstract

Cores extracted from trees to assess wood chemistry are generally not used to assess basic density in eucalypt pulpwood breeding programmes, as the measurement of basic density requires high temperature drying. However, both wood chemistry and air-dried density can be assessed on the same core. This study found that the inter-trait genetic correlation between core air-dried and basic density to be effectively equal to one in two Tasmanian Eucalyptus nitens progeny trials. This implies that selection for basic density could be undertaken using air-dried density with little or no reduction in genetic gain, thus negating the need to extract a separate core to assess basic density and wood chemistry. The adoption of this practice could considerably reduce the cost of assessing these traits in eucalypt breeding programmes.