Clonal composites as a strategy for mitigating the clones × environments interaction in eucalyptus

Abstract

Background: One of the biggest challenges for breeders, especially for perennial plants, is to have strategies to reduce the risk of recommending new clones. One of the alternatives would be to use a mixture of clones, clonal compounds (CC), instead of monoclones (MC). This strategy has not yet been properly proven from experiments involving CC and MC simultaneously in different environments. Results: The CC’s contribution to the interaction was significant, although associated with a high MAI estimate (m³. ha-1. year-1). The CC’s took better advantage of environmental stimuli than most MC’s. The rick estimates in the CC recommendation were, in most situations, lower than those of the different monoclones. Conclusion: The use of CC proved to be more efficient than the use of MC in mitigating the effects of the interaction of genotypes by environments, in recommending clones for forest exploitation.