Ha Huy Thinh 1 , Nguyen Dinh Hai 1 , Le Dinh Kha 1 ,
Nguyen Duc Kien 1 Brian Baltunis 2 , and Chris Harwood 2
1 Research Centre for Forest Tree Improvement ,
Forest Science Institute of Vietnam
2 CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship

• Strong scientific leadership by Prof. Le Dinh Kha, Dr Ha Huy Thinh and colleagues at Forest Science Institute of Vietnam
• Work commenced 1991
• Government regulations approved tested clones for use in plantations
• Training/extension packages provided to regions (e.g. – no F
2
)
• >200,000 ha plantations by 2009, tremendous economic benefits

1992
Select 30 outstanding F
1 mangium plantations hybrid ortets in 3-year-old A.
Fell candidates, propagate from coppice shoots, plant hedge gardens
Study wood properties of felled trees
Tissue-culture to maintain juvenility xx
☑
1996 Proving trials of best clones and controls
Nurseries for clonal propagation
1998
Operational planting of best clones
Development of new series of hybrid clones
2009 Over 200,000 hectares of plantations established (about 10 production clones)

Hedge plant orchard –ex tissue culture
Local materials
Labour intensive
High output: up to 2M plants / year
Low production cost: US 2 cents per ramet

• Origin of new candidate clones ?
– Intensive selection of natural hybrids in plantations
– (Controlled pollination)
• Pre-screening of hybrid trees before cloning and clonal testing – an important step
– 5 new candidate clones were chosen for testing from 100 hybrid individuals in plantations at Ba Vi
• Standard clone testing protocols of RCFTI
– Initial clone trials: 3 reps of 10-tree line plots at two or more locations
• Here, we report clonal testing of 21 pre-screened hybrid clones against the original set of 6 production clones and purespecies controls, in four trials

Grower: sells by standing volume
Sawmill: volume, straight logs, knot free, low shrinkage …
Export woodchips: volume and density
( sell by dry weight)
Vietnamese pulpmill: volume , density and pulp yield

What do we want to improve?
Objective traits Independent growers
Woodchip exporters
Local pulp mills
Integrated grower/ manufacturers
*** *** Log volume at harvest
% sawlog
(>12 cm dia)
Log straightness
Basic density
Wood hardness and stiffness
% heartwood
Low shrinkage
Pulp yield
(% dry weight)
Knot-related defects
***
*
*
** ***
***
***
***
*
***
**
***
**
***

Objective trait (harvest age, 6-12 years) Selection traits (age 3-4 years)
Stand volume at harvest
% of volume that is sawlog
Log straightness
Log basic density
Wood hardness and stiffness
% heartwood
Low & uniform wood shrinkage
Pulp yield (% dry weight)
Absence of knot-related defects
Dbh, height, health, survival
Stem straightness, light branching
(affected by stocking & silviculture)
Stem straightness
Pilodyn, wood core basic density
Acoustic wave velocity, basic density
% heartwood?
Shrinkage properties of wood samples
NIR-predicted pulp yield
(determined by silviculture)

20 0 N
16 0 N
12 0 N
104 0 E 106 0 E
Ba Vi
Nghe An
Quang Binh
Site
Ba Vi
Nghe An
Quang Binh
Dong Nai
Dong Nai
(oS)
21
18
17
11
(mm)
1680
1620
2370
2070 temp
(oC)
23.2
24.3
24.8
26.1

Site
Soil
Fertilizer kg/tree
Superphosphate
NPK
Manure
Biofertilizer
Replicates
Trees/plot
Spacing
Clones tested
Ba Vi clay loam
Nghe An Quang Binh clay loam clay loam
Dong Nai sandy alluvium
0.3
3
3
10
3 x 2 m
23
0.3
0.2
3
3
10
4 x 2.5 m
23
0.2
0.4
3
10
3 x 3 m
22
0.1
0.5
3
49
3 x 3 m
12

pure-species controls production clones from year 2000 other hybrid clones
* tested in trial
Treatment
T4
T5
T6
T7
T8
TB11
TB12
TB15
TB3
TB6
TB9
BV33
BV5
BV71
BV72
BV73
BV74
BV75
CQ58
CQ62
T1
T3 auriculiformis mangium
BV10
BV15
BV16
BV29
BV32
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Ba Vi Nghe
An
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Quang
Binh
*
*
*
Dong
Nai
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* * *
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*

Line plot at Ba Vi trial, age 9 years
Nghe An trial age 8 years

Dong Nai clone trial at age 3.5 years
49-tree square plot of clone BV10
Fast-growing: standing volume over bark at
35 months averaged 56 m 3 /ha
Average MAI at 3 years
= 19 m 3 /ha

Measuring Pilodyn penetration at Ba Vi
Collecting wood disks at Nghe An for basic density measurement

• Simple model to test significance of treatment differences: replicates and treatments as fixed effects
• Calculated Pearson correlation coefficients r for clone means to examine trait-trait correlations
• Pure-species controls excluded from data sets for significance testing and when calculating correlations
• Mixed model (replicates fixed, treatments random) used to estimate clonal mean repeatabilities

Overall growth performance
• Survival good (80+%) except at Quang Binh (48% at 2 years)
• Growth was faster at Dong Nai in the south of Vietnam
• Hybrid clones grew significantly faster than Acacia mangium and A. auriculiformis in the north, but no faster than A. mangium at Dong Nai
5
4
3
2
1
0 n.s.
Ba Vi Nghe An Quang
Binh
Dong Nai
North South trial mean mangium

Dbh
Height
Straightness
Branch size
Crown health
Disease
Pilodyn (8-9 years)
Ba Vi
4 years
<0.001
<0.001
<0.01
-
-
-
<0.001
Nghe An Quang Binh
4 years 2 years
<0.001
<0.001
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
<0.001
-
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
n.s.
n.s.
-
-
(pure species controls excluded)
Dong Nai
3 years n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
-
<0.01
-

Clonal mean repeatabilities were high for growth traits except at Dong Nai, and high for pilodyn
Dbh
Height
Straightness
Branch size
Crown health
Disease
Pilodyn (8-9 years)
Ba Vi Nghe An Quang Binh Dong Nai
4 years 4 years 2 years 3 years
0.95
0.96
0.70
-
0.59
0.63
0.26
0.30
0.37
0.63
0.70
0.25
nil nil nil
-
-
0.79
-
0.78
-
0.62
-
(pure-species controls excluded)

4-year Dbh rankings at Ba Vi and Nghe An not very consistent (r = 0.33), but some clones grew well at both sites
12
BV73
BV75
10
Critical diffs. P=0.05
BV33
BV10
8 mangium
6
4
4 auriculiformis
6 8 10
Dbh at 4 years Nghe An (cm)
12

Pilodyn was a fairly good predictor of wood disk basic density at Nghe An (year 8)
580
560
540
520 c.d (P=0.05)
R
2
= 0.6138
500
BV16
480
8 9 10 pilodyn (mm)
11 12
• Clone density - breast height disks from 3 ramets per clone
• Clone pilodyn - 2 shots per ramet from 15 ramets per clone

No clear relationship between clone basic density and dbh at Nghe An (age 8 years)
580
560
540
520
500
480
6 auriculiformis mangium c.d (P=0.05)
10
BV16
14
Dbh (cm)
18 22

Dbh (age 4) and pilodyn (age 8) not well-correlated at Nghe An r = 0.09 for hybrid clones
12
10
8 mangium auriculiformis
BV16 c.d. (P=0.05)
6
4 6 8 10
Dbh at 4 years 9cm)
12 14

Pilodyn rankings at Ba Vi and Nghe Anh
consistent (r = 0.71 for hybrid clones )
12
11
10
9
Critical difference (P=0.05)
BV16 auriculiformis
8
7
7 mangium
CQ58
8 9 10 11
Pilodyn penetration at Nghe An (mm)
12

• The performance of the new candidate clones was generally good – pre-screening had worked well
• Hybrid clones outgrew A. mangium in north and central
Vietnam but not the south
• A. auriculiformis much slower than hybrid and mangium
• Significant differences among hybrid clones for growth except at the Dong Nai trial site in the south of Vietnam
• Significant differences among clones for wood density at the two sites where density/pilodyn was assessed

• No clear relationship between growth and basic density amongst the different hybrid clones
• Clone x Environment interaction was apparent for growth
• Little Clone x Environment interaction for wood density
• Tests using 3 replicates of 10-tree line plots worked well for first-stage screening of clones
• Large-plot tests (e.g. 49-tree plots) to evaluate clone performance at the stand level should use 5, not 3 replicates

• Some “new series” clones (e.g. BV71, 73, 75 and TB11) have been approved as production clones by Vietnam’s
Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development
• Different clones will be favoured by different user groups based on their rankings for different objective traits and regional differences in performance
• Need further hybrid breeding and selection to broaden the genetic base of acacia hybrid plantations

• Need further hybrid breeding and selection to broaden the genetic base of acacia hybrid plantations
• With broad and well-studied breeding populations of A. mangium and A. auriculiformis and a well-tested set of outstanding existing acacia hybrid clones, Vietnam is wellpositioned to exploit advances in genetics and genomics
• New ACIAR project www.breedingtropicalacacias.com

Expanded screening of candidate hybrid genotypes
Field trial of family-identified F
1 hybrid seedlings identified in the nursery from open-pollinated A. mangium families

Acacia auriculiformis: potential for genetic selection in hybrid breeding
4-year wood volumes in central and northern Vietnam
25
10
5
0
20
15 central northern best orchard orchard bulk best natural seed source local
Hai et al.
Journal of Tropical Forest Science 20(4): 313–327

Acacia auriculiformis: genetic variation in wood quality
Dr Phi Hong Hai – his research shows strong genetic differences in wood density, shrinkage and stiffness among auriculiformis families and clones

• My co-authors!!!
• Support from ACIAR Project FST 2008/007 “Advanced breeding and deployment methods for tropical acacias”,
Forest Science Institute of Vietnam, and CSIRO.
• Contributions from FSIV staff, especially Mr Do Huu Son