Effect of provenance on early flowering in Norway spruce

Abstract

Being connected to shortening of breeding cycle and monogenic mode of induction and environmental regulation of gene expression, early flowering is an important issue in Norway spruce. Objective of this study was to assess the provenance effect in spontaneous early flowering of Norway spruce in a provenance field test in central Lithuania. Cone yield of 120 provenances (ca 4000 trees) from the Baltic States, Russia, Poland, Finland and Sweden was assessed at age of 11. The results showed that the number of cones per tree varying between 1 and 58 cones. The ANOVA on number of cones per tree revealed a significant effect of provenance, whereas the block effect was not significant. The southern provenances possessed relatively more flowering trees and more cones per tree than the northern provenances. The product-moment correlation coefficients at the provenance mean level between the flowering traits and the latitude of provenance origin were significant. We attribute this provenance variation in early flowering to their difference in phenology caused by the transfer effect