Eucalyptus Breeding for Clonal Forestry

Abstract

As global demand for wood increases, planted forests will also become increasingly important. Accepting and promoting them as the only way to address the wood scarcity problem and also to help suppress the demand for illegally logged timber from natural forests is a major issue globally. Eucalypt clonal forestry is proving to be an iconic alternative in this context, due to their fast growth, wood quality appropriate to many different uses, huge existing variability, and suitability to vegetative propagation. However, efficient breeding and deployment strategies are essential. The present chapter aims to present, based on the authors’ practical experience, an overview on the most successful approaches that may be used during the different phases of eucalypt breeding programs for clonal forestry. Relevant topics covered are: identifying breeding objectives and related traits for the main eucalypt businesses worldwide; the major planted species and their value for different objectives; breeding strategies (recurrent selection methods, breeding cycle, etc.); recombination issues, such as effective population size, mating designs and controlled pollination methods; evaluation and selection procedures as applied to progeny and clonal trials; and deployment aspects, such as number of commercial clones, large scale vegetative propagation methods, and risk management