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Home → Publications → Nursery Manuals → Forest Nursery Manual—Bareroot → Chapter 17: Genetic Implications of Nursery Practices

Chapter 17: Genetic Implications of Nursery Practices

The genetic adaptation of forest trees to plantation sites can be impaired by nursery practices that favor the survival of some seedlings over others, thus producing a seedlot with a genetic makeup different from that of the original seedlot. Seed grading has considerable potential for directly altering the genetic mixture in the seedlot. Stratification period, sowing date, watering regime, lifting date, and other scheduling may have important but less direct influences on adaptation. For most seedlots, the risk of poor adaptation caused by nursery practices is probably no greater than risks caused by several current seed-collection practices. But for seedlots in which only a small percentage of seeds become seedlings that can survive outplanting, the risk may be as large as that in moving seeds between seed zones.


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Author(s): Robert K. Campbell, F. C. Sorensen

Publication: Nursery Manuals - Forest Nursery Manual—Bareroot