Estimates of genetic parameters and prediction of additive genetic values in Pinus kesya progenies

The objective of this study was to select Pinus kesya progenies by the estimation of genetic parameters using the method of restricted maximum likelihood (Reml) and prediction of additive genetic values by the best linear unbiased prediction (Blup). The Pinus kesya progeny test was installed in randomized blocks, which consisted of 30 progenies and three replications. The twenty-year-old trees were evaluated for the traits diameter at breast height (DBH), height (HT) and stem form (FOR). The DBH, HT and FOR means were, respectively, 21.89 cm, 21.89 m and 1.56 and their respective mean heritability estimates of progenies were 0.58, 0.39 and 0.66. DBH presented the highest coefficient of additive genetic variation (17.89%). The selection of the 80 best trees which belonged to 21 progenies provided a gain of 9.62% for FOR with a mean of 3.81 trees selected per progeny, an effective population size of 30.86 and genetic divergence of 0.37.