Consistency of phenology and growth of intra‐ and interprovenance families of Picea abies

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Abstract
In a nursery trial with trees from a 9 x 9 factorial mating, height and seven phenological characters were studied during growth periods 3–8. Three regions, northern Sweden, central Sweden and central Europe, were each represented by six parents. Out of the possible 81 crosses 57 were realized. The analysis of variance revealed that the error component of variance was mostly low compared to the sum of the genetic components, and that the additive components dominated. For the height character the population component dominated. The interaction components, female population x male population and female x male within population, were for all characters much smaller than the additive components, except for number of sylleptic shoots (= free growth). The estimated GCA‐values were for all characters consistent during the testing period. The number of sylleptic shoots more or less disappeared during the end of the test period. Except for this trait our data suggest that the laborious phenological examination can be limited to one year in applied breeding.