Studies on Fruiting Quantity of Pinus armandii Clones in the Seed Orchard and the Seed Quality

Successive observation was carried out in clonal seed orchard of Pinus armandii, which is located in Zixishan Mountainous area, Chuxiong, Yunnan, and the studies on fruiting quantity of 95 clones and seed quality of 20 clones were carried out from 2001 to 2004. It was showed by the results that there was significant genetic variation in fruiting quantity among the clones and the variance fraction varied in different years. But the heritability of fruiting maintained at a higher level. The analysis demonstrated that there was stability on the average cone production among clones, which showed the possibility to select high fruit yield clones. There was also extremely significant difference in fruiting quantity among different provenances. There was no significant correlation between the fruiting quantity and seed quality. It was indicated that selecting the clones by fruiting index would not influence on the seed quality, showing great economic potential to take fruiting character as the final goal in selective breeding of Pinus armandii.