Provenance performance of Chukrasia in a five-year-old field trial in the Northern Territory, Australia.

摘要

In an experimental planting using seedlots from a range of provenances of Chukrasia tabularis and C. velutina established at Berry Springs near Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia, C. velutina had significantly faster growth. The trial consisted of 16 seed sources from natural stands in China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and seed from a stand already planted in Darwin. The early performance and variability of species and seedlots were assessed at 5.3 years of age for height and diameter growth, axis persistence associated with apical dominance and single-stem growth, stem straightness, bark character, incidence of suckering and damage by termites or shoot borers. There were significant differences between seed sources for most growth traits. Trees of the rough corky-barked C. velutina, originating from deciduous forests, grew faster than those of the smooth-barked C. tabularis, which occurs naturally in moister environments. The landrace from Darwin was intermediate in bark texture between the two species and had poor growth. The best provenance of C. velutina had a mean height of 7.6 m and diameter of 10.6 cm at age 5.3 years, a growth rate showing potential as a plantation species for the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia. More and longer-term trials are needed to predict the performance and between-seed-source variation in growth, wood traits, silvicultural characteristics and resistance to shoot-tip borer (Hypsipyla robusta) across a range of environmental conditions..