A Clonal Test of Acacia Hybrid at Lad Krating Plantation, Chachoengsao Province

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate the variation in growth, survival, and phenological characteristics of an Acacia hybrid at Lad Krating plantation, Chachoengsao Province to select clones suitable for the Lad Krating plantation. A total of 37 clones were selected, out of which 27 clones were selected from the clone bank of Lad Krating plantation and 10 clones were obtained from the Royal Forest Department (RFD) through a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replicates from the 37 clones. Growth characteristics were measured every six months and phenology characteristics (stem straightness, axis persistence, and branch thickness) were collected for 24 month old trees.

Results of the study indicated that the average diameter at breast height (DBH) at ages 6, 12, 18, and 24 months were 1.40±0.57, 4.19±1.07, 6.23±1.40, and 8.08±1.68 cm, respectively, while the average heights were 2.50±0.45, 4.22±0.76, 6.81±1.24 and 8.96±1.40 m, respectively. The survival rate for trees of age 6, 12, 18, and 24 months-old were 91.34±9.42%, 93.92±6.94%, 88.30±11.33% and 86.97±11.72%, respectively. The measured phenology characteristics for 24 month old trees indicated that the stem straightness (on a scale of 4 points) had an average score of 3.31±0.67, axis persistence (on a scale of 6 points) had an average score of 3.24±1.17, and the branch thickness (on a scale of 4 points) had an average score of 2.07±0.92. Most characteristics of Acacia hybrids from the RFD had a high growth performance and phenology characteristics apart from branch thickness. The clones ranked according to five characteristics DBH, height, survival rate, stem straightness, axis persistence and branch thickness indicated, that clones No. 34, 33, 31, 37 and 35 had the highest perfomance at the Lad Krating plantation.