Clonal variation in cone and seed characteristics of Taşköprü-tekçam scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) seed orchard

In this study, determination of clonal variation at 13 aged clonal seed orchard of scots pine with respect to 15 of cone and seed characters were aimed. For this reason, from all 30 clones in the orchard, 10 of ramets were randomly selected and 12 of cones were collected. On these cones and seeds, wings obtained from these cones, some characters such as; cone wet weight, cone length, cone width, cone dry weight, total scale number, fertile scale number, total seed number, sound seed number, seed width, seed length, 1000 seed weight, seed potential, seed efficiency, wing length, wing width were determined.In the result of this study among the clones, cone wet weight varied from 9.1 to 23.29 g. The ranges of cone length and cone width were 44.09-65.30 mm and 23.33-33.18 mm, respectively, while the cone dry weight was 6.10-17.64 g. The respective ranges of total scale number and fertile scale number were 56.31-86.51 and 19.75-42.17. Meanwhile, total seed number and filled seed number were 13.78-42.93 and 3.10-22.83, respectively. Seed width varied from 2.35 to 3.33 mm while seed length varied from 4.46 to 5.33 mm. The ranges of 1000 seed weight, seed potential and seed efficiency were 8.68-13.25 g, 29.09-84.33 number, 5-30%, respectively. Also, wing length varied from 14.07 to 20.28 mm while wing width varied from 4.19 to 6.09 mm. As to the filled seed number the 18, 26 and 27 numbered clones was estimated as the best ones.The mean seed efficiency of seed orchard is 17%. This amount is quite low. For increasing the seed efficiency, in advance, the sexual harmony between the clones should be determined and also another methods ( fertilization, tying, hormonal treatments, pollen transfer etc.) should be tried in this orchard.