Tree Improvement Program Project Report 2006 / 2007

The provincial status report on interior broadleaf species
is in preparation and should be completed by the end of
2007.
Red alder
A clone bank for the southern breeding zone has been
established at the Cowichan Lake Research Station with 87
clones selected from the provenance-progeny trial at Bowser
on Vancouver Island. Fifty-seven clones have also been
selected from the provenance-progeny trial at Thunderbird
near Terrace. As at the Bowser site, selection was based
on the breeding value of the stem volume and other
characteristics such as stem form, branch size and angle, etc.
To control the relatedness of the clones, the bank includes
no more than three individuals from each family.
Black Cottonwood
The third long-term provenance-clonal trial was established
at Harrison Mills in the spring of 2007 with 3270 trees of
516 clones from 142 provenances. The first measurements
(age 2) have been taken for the Terrace and Red Rock trials
planted in 2005. Significant vole damage at the Terrace
site and frost damage at the Red Rock site were observed
and will be surveyed this fall during the second round of
measurements.
B g-leaf Maple
One–year-old seedlings in styroblocks 615 have been
transplanted into styroblocks 723 for another growing
season. Seedlings will be lifted this winter and planted out
next spring. The total height of a seedling, including its
root, will not exceed 36 inches. Four sites — Sayward on
northern Vancouver Island, Skutz Falls on the south island,
Powell River on the north coast, and Seabird Island in the
southern mainland — have been selected for the long-term
provenance-progeny testing program. The Sayward, Skutz
Falls, and Powell River sites have been fenced and herbicide
treatment will be applied later this summer.
T R E E I M P R O V E M E N T P R O G R A M
P R O J E C T R E P O R T 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7
.9 Inter or Douglas-fir Tree
Breed ng Program
Barry Jaqu sh, Val Ashley, G sele Ph ll ps and
Bonn e Hooge
The BC Interior Douglas-fir tree-breeding program began
in 1982 and is based on phenotypic selection in wild
stands, open-pollinated (o.p.) progeny testing, clonal seed
orchards established through backward selection on the
original parents, and controlled mating to produce pedigree
material for second-generation selection. Tree height,
diameter, and volume are the major traits considered for
improvement. The first generation of breeding includes
1,466 open-pollinated families in six seed planning units
(SPU). Seed orchards were established in the early-mid
1990s and are now coming into production.
In 2006, the flower crop was sparse, and only 67
crosses were completed in all six SPUs. One hundred and
sixty-five pollen lots were collected, extracted, and stored
for future breeding. Controlled crossing for the highest
priority Nelson SPUs is now about 75 percent complete.
Four 15-year-old progeny tests in the East Kootenay SPU
were maintained and measured. Breeding values (BV)
for rotation-age volume were estimated by Best Linear
Prediction (BLP) and ranged from -87.6 to 37.2 percent.
The BV for the top 30 East Kootenay parents averaged 25.2
percent. In the Nelson low-elevation SPU, four 20-year-old
sites were maintained and two were measured.
Data analyses for this zone are in progress. Several
research plantings were maintained and measured,
including the 20-year-old seedling/steckling study and five
Submaritime Douglas-fir adaptation tests.
The pilot Interior Douglas-fir Armillaria genetic
resistance study was completed. This test included 1,566
trees from 88 o.p. families and four SPUs. The artificial
inoculation technique proved very effective because
Armillaria was present in 1,408 of the 1,566 treated trees
(Figure 9). After three years, 83 percent of the trees had
been killed by Armillaria and six percent of the living trees
were completely girdled and near death. Family mortality
ranged from 44 to 100 percent. In general, families from
warmer and drier environments were less susceptible to
mortality than trees from colder and wetter environments.
Analyses of the 30-year-old range-wide Interior
Douglas-fir provenance test at Trinity Valley showed that
provenances from the east slopes of the Coast and Cascade
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