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Abstract
In Europe and North America the cut branches of noble fir (Abies procera Rehd.) are widely used for greenery production for various decorational purposes. In this study, provenance and family variation were evaluated for a set of quality traits related to greenery production as well as to the harvest of cut branches in kg ha–1. The study was based on 11 field trials. Testing showed that Danish second or later generation seed sources had in general a higher greenery quality than imports from the Pacific Northwest of America. Narrow-sense heritabilities estimated for quality traits (colour, coverage and shoot type, and for height growth and branch characteristics) ranged from 0.04 to 0.17. The tested Danish progeny material showed a substantial amount of genetic variation. The estimated gains from backwards selection showed an increase in the quality as well as the quantity of harvestable branches for greenery production. Estimated gain in net income per harvest was, dependent on selection strategy, estimated to vary between ∊600 and 900 compared with unselected.
The Danish Growers Production Fee Foundation has financed parts of this study initiated by the Christmas Tree Growers Association. Very special thanks go to the field trial hosts, owners as well as forest managers, who made a tremendous effort to weigh and sort the boughs harvested in every plot at each harvest year, and without this work no such series of bough harvest data could have been collected. I also gratefully acknowledge a crew of students carrying out the quality measurements in the limited window between growth cessation and bough harvest. Ole Kim Hansen and Jon Kehlet Hansen are thanked for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and Melita J⊘rgensen is thanked for correcting the language.
