Adjusting for the effect of missing or dominated plants in progeny and clonal trials of Eucalyptus

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to estimate the effect of either missing or dominated plants (those that developed poorly) in experiments evaluating progenies or clones of Eucalyptus. Additionally, it was to investigate whether the use of the area available per plant is a suitable strategy to mitigate the effect of missing plants. Lastly, it was to evaluate whether missing or dominated plants in the experiments affected the association between plant performance in a progeny trial (PT) and their respective clones in a clonal trial (CT). Five 5-year-old PTs and four 3-year-old CTs were used. The recorded trait was diameter at breast height (DBH). The area available per plant was used to carry out the adjustment, taking into consideration the absence of neighboring plants as well as dominated plants. It was found that with the level of missing plants below 20% in experiments, the adjustment using the area available per plant did not improve the efficiency of the selection of either PTs or CTs. The strategy of considering not only missing plants but also dominated plants is not beneficial for the adjustment.