[Variation of the growth, fruiting and resistance to disease and insect of the half-sib families of Pinus koraiensis superior trees.]

We investigated the growth traits (tree height, diameter at the breast, crown diameter), fruiting traits (total number of cones in 7 consecutive fruiting years) and resistance to disease and insect of 551 half-sib families of Pinus koraiensis superior trees in 29-year-old in Hongwei seed orchard of Lushuihe, Jilin Province, with the method of multi-trait comprehensive evaluation and combining with six traits. The results showed that all the traits were significantly different among different families or blocks. Phenotypic variation coefficient of different traits ranged from 13.9% to 61.0%. The extremely significant difference and high variation coefficients were beneficial for elite families evaluation and selection. The family heritability of volume, seed yield and resistance to disease and insect (the values were 0.47, 0.52, 0.48, respectively) were higher than single plant heritability (the values were 0.37, 0.07, 0.10, respectively). There was a extremely significant positive correlation between growth traits, fruiting traits and resistance to disease and insect. 28 elite families were selected with a selection rate of 5%, with the genetic gains of volume, seed yield and resistance to disease and insect being 16.8%, 71.4% and 0.5%, respectively. Seven elite individuals were selected from the elite families with a selection rate of 2%, with the genetic gains of volume, seed yield and resistance to disease and insect being 66.8%, 80.9% and 0.7%, respectively. These elite families and individual plants showed obvious advantages, which could guide the thinning of clonal seed orchards and provide breeding materials for the construction of high-generation seed orchards.