Genetics and breeding of tropical acacias for forest products: Acacia mangium, A. auriculiformis and A. crassicarpa

Abstract

Industrial forest plantations are playing an important role in the forestry sector for both economic and environmental reasons. Some fast-growing species of tropical acacias, such as Acacia mangium, A. auriculiformis, A. crassicarpa and Acacia hybrids are among the most dominant trees in forest industrial plantations in Southeast Asia countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. These trees are mainly planted to supply raw materials for pulp and paper, sawn lumber, the plywood industry and wood energy. Improvement through optimizing of silvicultural practices, exploring genetics and breeding of acacias has been gradually taking place. Although progress is still slow, as compared to agricultural crops, due to the age at rotation, larger tree size and extensive site management, some achievements in genetics and breeding of acacias have provided a significant benefit and impact in the operational scale of forest industries. Genetic diversity of acacias is low and most breeding is practiced conventionally under a recurrent selection strategy practiced successively from the first generation to advanced generation breeding cycles. Recently, breeding of acacias is also being developed through hybridization, application of biotechnology and molecular breeding.