Genetic Analysis of Growth and Susceptibility to Bacterial Wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum) in Eucalyptus by Interspecific Factorial Crossing

Factorial mating crosses of Eucalyptus urophylla × E. tereticornis (3 x 5), E. urophylla × E. camaldulensis (3 x 3) and E. urophylla × E. exserta (3 x 3) were used for genetic analysis of growth traits and susceptibility to bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum). Genetic effects including female, male and female × male interaction were examined for height (H) and diameter at breast height (DBH) at age five as well as final bacterial wilt index (BWI) in both nursery inoculation and field assessment by five years of age. Female, male and female x male variances appeared to have a significant role in growth traits H and DBH though their magnitude varied for the factorials studied. For the trait BWI additive (male) and dominant (female x male) effects were both involved in the genetics of bacterial wilt susceptibility, and additive was the major. Estimates of narrow-sense heritability (h²) for H, DBH and BWI ranged from 0.11 ± 0.06 to 0.70 ± 0.09, varying with either trait or factorial. Growth traits (H and DBH) had low and non-significant phenotypic and genetic correlations with BWI in all the three factorials, ranging from -0.10 ± 0.08 to 0.17 ± 0.14 in coefficient of correlation. This indicates that it may be possible to select superior trees with both fast growth and high resistance to bacterial wilt in eucalypt hybrid populations in operational breeding programs.