Determination of cold hardiness of some taurus cedar (cedrus libani a. rich.) provenances in Ankara-i̇lyakut provenance trials

Due to its high adaptation capacity to various stress factors, Taurus cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.) is commonly used within and outside of its natural distribution areas in reforestation works for improving degraded and unproductive forests. Especially, selection of cold tolerant provenances is necessary to be more successful for establishing new plantations at higher altitudes or outside of its natural distribution. Several provenances of Taurus cedar sampled from Ankara-İlyakut provenance trials were used in cold hardiness tests. The study was conducted Randomized Plots Design with 10 replicates. Control group (+40C) was not subjected to freezing temperature. One year old twigs of five provenances were sampled in February 2018 for cold hardiness tests. Twigs were subjected to cold temperatures of -15, -20, -22.5, -25, -30 and -30 0C. After freezing treatments, cold damages on needless were determined by using chlorophyl fluorescence and visual screening methods. Results of both screening methods showed that damages of cell membranes began between -20 and -22.5 0C among provenances but lethal damage occurred in all provenances when the temperature was about -25 0C. Bozdağ, Konya and Elmalı provenances were more tolerant than Damlaçalı and K. Maraş provenances. Provenance variation in cold hardiness was determined. But this variation was small relative to other tree species. Source of this small variation may be narrow distribution area of species and similar altitude of tested provenances in this study.