Implementation of selection trials and data collection : Criteria for visual selection of individual trees

The breeder is often confronted with the need to select individual trees in heterogeneous populations (farmers' fields, breeding trials), without availability of long term records on individual trees. In breeding trials, preference is to be given to selection within progenies that have good average performance. Within the CFC/ICCO/IPGRI project such preselection of adult trees is proposed for the local clone selection plots and for population breeding. The objective of this proposal is to indicate important selection traits that can be quite simply observed to increase efficiency of individual tree selection.