This paper deals with the acorn morphology (length, diameter and mass) analyzed in seventeen English oak genotypes (Quercus robur L)from the English Oak Clonal Seed Orchard Banov Brod (Srem,Vojvodina). The highest values of acorn mass and length were measured in genotype 5. The largest diameters were measured in genotypes 6 and 21. Genotype 35 had the lowest acorn mass, length and diameter. The results from this study should serve as guidelines for the selection of trees yielding fruits possessing the desirable morphological characteristics

Nikolić Nataša P.

Orlović Saša S.

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Zbornik Matice srpske za prirodne nauke / Proceedings for Natural Sciences, Matica SrpskaNovi Sad, ¥ 102, 53—58, 2002UDC 582.623.2:631.524Nataša P. Nikoliã1 , Saša S. Orloviã21 Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Biology and Ecology,Trg Dositeja Obradoviãa 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia2 Faculty of Agriculture, Poplar Research Institute, Antona Åehova 13,21000 Novi Sad, YugoslaviaGENOTYPIC VARIABILITY OF MORPHOLOGICALCHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH OAK(QUERCUS ROBUR L.) ACORNABSTRACT: This paper deals with the acorn morphology (length, diameter andmass), analyzed in seventeen English oak genotypes (Quercus robur L.) from the EnglishOak Clonal Seed Orchard Banov Brod (Srem, Vojvodina). The highest values of acorn massand length were measured in genotype 5. The largest diameters were measured in genotypes6 and 21. Genotype 35 had the lowest acorn mass, length and diameter. The results fromthis study should serve as guidelines for the selection of trees yielding fruits possessing thedesirable morphological characteristics.KEY WORDS: acorn, morphology, Quercus robur L.INTRODUCTIONGenus Quercus, represented by deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs,belongs to the Fagaceae family. In our region, this genus is represented by se-veral species. The English oak (Quercus robur L.) is one of the most impor-tant forest species. English oak forests are the most valuable forests in Europefrom the economic aspect (Orloviã e tal., 2000). Owing to reckless timberharvesting in our country the former English oak sites were often left unfore-sted or they were regenerated by other species (Erdeši, 1985). One of themethods of regeneration and restocking of partly naturally regenerated areas isto produce and use selected forest seed, produced in seed orchards (L i t -tvay, 1999).Oak fruit, acorn, contains a seed without an endosperm and an achlo-rophyllous embryo (Watson a n d Dallwitz,2000). The size of Englishoak acorn depends on tree age and site characteristics, but its form, which isovoid, is constant (Sárkány a n d Szalai, 1966). The size of a matureacorn is not constant and depends on the yield and other growth factors53( Maksimoviã e t al., 1982). A direct correlation between acorn size andyoung seedling survival in stress conditions and a positive correlation of seed-ling size and acorn size are reported by Aizen a n d Woodcock (1996).The cultivation of high quality oak and the intensified timber volume pro-duction are based on the production of superior seed. For this reason, in 1973,the best stands of Quercus robur L. were selected in the River Sava basin anddesignated as seed stands (Maksimoviã e t al., 1982). Also, an Englishoak clonal seed orchard was established in the Sremska Mitrovica Forest Esta-te, from which the material for the analyses originates. This morphologicalstudy of acorn should produce guidelines for the selection of genotypes thatyield fruits with desirable characteristics.MATERIAL AND METHODSPlant material was taken from the English Oak Clonal Seed Orchard Ba-nov Brod, Forest Administration Višnjiãevo, Forest Estate Sremska Mitrovica,State Enterprise “Srbijašume", Belgrade. The plantation is situated along theleft bank of the River Sava, in the location “Šanåine", the Banov Brod Forest,the village of Bosut. It was established by vegetative means, i.e. grafting. Eng-lish oak seedlings of seed origin (acorn), aged from two to five years, wereused as rootstock in the plantation establishment. Scions were taken from thetrees (plus-trees) selected in the forests of East and West Srem and numberedfrom 1 to 85. The scions (shoots with three buds) were removed from plus-tre-es during the dormant period (early March) and kept until grafting (late April— early May). The scions for summer grafting were shoots with green barkwhose buds were formed in May and June of the current year. In this way, theclonal seed orchard was established from 85 genotypes of English oak.The following seventeen genotypes were selected for this study: 4, 5, 6,16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29, 30, 33, 35, 38, 40 and 85.Acorn mass was determined by measuring the mass of 20 acorns and bycalculating the average value.Acorn length and diameter were measured using a slide gauge and ex-pressed in cm.The study results were processed statistically by the analysis of varianceusing the program MSTATC. The genotypes were compared using Duncan'stest at   = 0.05 significance level, with the values of the least significant digits— LSD. The means of the study parameters were ranked and marked with let-ters.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe morphological study of the selected plant acorns indicates the presen-ce of significant differences in both length and diameter (Table 1). Among theanalyzed morphological characteristics, the least genotypic variability was ob-served for acorn length (CV = 5.23%). The highest average (32.3 mm), and54the highest critical values (31.0 mm, i.e. 35.0 mm) characterize the genotype5. Genotype 16 had the smallest acorn length (23.8 mm) and the lowest criti-cal values (20.7 mm, i.e. 26.0 mm). In general, the average size of the studiedparameter in all genotypes was 27.2 mm. Compared with its length, acorn dia-meter had a somewhat higher variability among the studied genotypes (CV =6.28%). The average minimum value for all plants was 14.4 mm, maximum17.4 mm. Genotypes 21 and 6 had the largest diameters, 18.0 mm and 17.9mm, respectively. The smallest acorn diameter occurred in genotype 35 (13.9mm). The average diameter size for all studied plants was 15.9 mm. Severalauthors have attempted to differentiate individual oak species based on acornsize and form. However, Brookes a n d Wigston (1979) report that the-se parameters are not reliable discriminants, either for the differentiation be-tween Quercus petraea and Quercus robur, or between these species and theirhybrids.Table 1. — Quercus robur acorn morphology, plantation “Banov Brod"GenotypeLength (mm) Diameter (mm) Mass (g)x min max x min max x min max4 26.7d 24.0 29.4 16.0def 14.0 17.2 4.4d 2.98 5.745 32.3a 31.0 35.0 16.8bc 15.0 18.3 6.1a 4.54 7.326 25.3ef 22.5 27.0 17.9a 17.0 19.6 5.5bc 3.76 7.1516 23.8g 20.7 26.0 16.2cde 14.4 17.5 3.7fg 2.43 5.3118 26.0de 24.3 27.6 14.9hi 14.0 16.0 3.6g 2.93 4.9920 28.0c 23.3 30.7 15.5fgh 14.0 17.0 3.8efg 2.29 4.9721 28.5c 26.3 29.9 18.0a 15.3 19.5 5.8ab 3.83 6.8722 26.5d 24.5 28.2 16.1def 14.4 17.2 4.4d 3.39 5.4325 25.1ef 23.9 27.0 15.7efg 14.4 17.3 3.8efg 3.30 4.9828 29.8b 26.3 31.8 16.5bcd 14.6 18.0 5.5bc 3.32 6.8329 26.7d 23.9 29.1 16.2cde 14.1 17.8 4.3de 2.83 5.2430 26.5d 24.3 30.0 15.5fgh 13.8 17.1 4.2def 3.18 5.4733 26.8d 24.2 29.3 15.0hi 13.8 16.2 3.9defg 3.10 4.9135 24.6fg 21.9 26.0 13.9j 12.4 15.8 2.8h 1.97 4.1238 28.7c 27.2 29.9 17.0b 15.5 18.5 5.1c 4.14 6.0640 26.7d 25.4 28.1 14.6i 13.3 15.8 3.8efg 3.09 4.7285 30.7b 28.8 32.6 15.2ghi 14.2 16.2 4.2def 3.30 5.16Average 27.2 24.9 29.3 15.9 14.4 17.4 4.4 3.20 5.60LSD0.05 0.89 — — 0.62 — — 0.47 — —CV% 5.23 — — 6.28 — — 17.26 — —Kormanik e ta l .(1998) reported of the dependence of Quercus rubraL. seedling development on acorn size. Plant height, root collar diameter andseedling survival are significantly correlated with acorn mass. Miao (1995)provided data on the effect of acorn mass on seedling growth in Quercus ru-bra. The results show that the total biomass increased with the increase of ini-tial acorn mass.55Acorn mass is the morphological characteristic with the highest variabil-ity (Table 1) among the studied plants. Disregarding the genotype, the valuesranged between 3.2 and 5.6 g. The average acorn mass was 4.4 g. The valuesof individual genotypes varied between 3.6 g and 6.1 g, measured in geno-types 18 and 5, respectively. It was interesting to note that genotype 5, alongwith the highest acorn mass, also excelled all studied plants in acorn length.The study of the above morphological characteristics of English oakacorn also included correlations (Table 2). Positive correlations were found be-tween length and width and length and acorn mass. There was a very highcorrelation between width and acorn mass (r2 = 0.87).Table 2. — Correlation of acorn morphological featuresAcorn morphology Correlation coefficientlength — width 0.36length — mass 0.66width — mass 0.87The shares of individual parts of the fruit in its total mass were also dif-ferent (Table 3). On average, cotyledons amounted to about 87.5% of the freshacorn mass, while pericarp and testa accounted for about 12.5%. The values ofindividual genotypes varied only up to four percent (from 86% to 90% for cot-yledons, i.e. from 10% to 14% for the other part of the fruit). It is interestingthat the percentage of individual parts of the fruit in its dry mass showed dif-ferent tendencies compared with fresh mass. Namely, while the cotyledon per-centage decreased, the percentage of pericarp and testa increased.Table 3. — Percentage of individual fruit parts in its total massGenotypePercentage in fresh mass (%) Percentage in dry mass (%)Cotyledon Pericarp and testa Cotyledon Pericarp and testa4 9 01 08 61 45 8 81 28 51 56 8 61 48 11 916 86 14 82 1818 88 12 84 1620 88 12 82 1821 87 13 84 1622 87 13 84 1625 88 12 86 1428 87 13 85 1529 89 11 87 1330 88 12 86 1433 88 12 84 1635 87 13 84 1638 89 11 85 155640 86 14 83 1785 86 14 83 17Average 87.5 12.5 84.2 15.8CONCLUSIONThe study of acorn morphological features in seventeen English oak ge-notypes from the English Oak Clonal Seed Orchard Banov Brod (Srem, Voj-vodina) points to genotype 5 with the highest measured values of acorn massand length. The largest diameters were measured in genotypes 6 and 21. Thelowest acorn mass and sizes occurred in genotype 35.REFERENCESAizen, M. A., Woodcock, H. (1996): Effects of acorn size on seedling sur-vival and growth in Quercus rubra following simulated spring freeze. CanadianJournal of Botany 74 (2): 308—314.Brookes, P. C., Wigston, D. L. (1979): Variation of morphological andchemical characteristics of acorns from populations of Quercus petraea, Quercusrobur and their hybrids. Watsonia 12 (4): 315—324.Erdeši, J. (1985): Ikonografija hrasta luÿnjaka Jugoslavije. Glasnik Šumarskog fa-kulteta Beograd 64: 109—140.Kormanik, P. P., Sung, S. S., Kormanik, T. L., Schlarbaum,S. E., Zarnoch, S. J. (1998): Effect of acorn size on development ofnorthern red oak 1-0 seedlings. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 28 (12):1805—1813.Littvay, T. (1999): Proizvodnja i uporaba selekcioniranog šumskog sjemena.R a -dovi Šumarskog instituta Jastrebarsko 34 (1): 43—54.Maksimoviã, M., Milivojeviã, B., Pekiã, R. (1982): Štetoåine hra-stovog ÿira u semenskoj sastojini Kupinske grede. Zaštita bilja 33 (3), 161:221—257.Miao, S. (1995): Acorn mass and seedling growth in Quercus rubra in response toelevated CO2. Journal of Vegetation Science 6 (5): 697—700.Orloviã, S., Erdeši, J., Radivojeviã, S., Obuãina, Z., Janja-toviã, G. (2000): Strategy and previous results of pedunculate oak (Quercusrobur L.) breeding in Yugoslavia. Oak 2000 — Poster Abstracts, Zagreb:75—76.Sárkány, S., Szalai, I. (1966): Növény-szervezettani gyakorlatok. Tankönyv-kiadó, Budapest, 307—308.Watson, L., Dallwitz, M. J. (2000): The Families of Flowering Plants: De-scriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Available fromhttp://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/angio/www/fagaceae.htm57GENOTIPSKA VARIJABILNOST MORFOLOŠKIH OSOBINAŸIRA HRASTA LUŸWAKA (QUERCUS ROBUR L.)Nataša P. Nikoliã1, Saša S. Orloviã21 Prirodno-matematiåki fakultet, Institut za biologiju i ekologiju,Trg Dositeja Obradoviãa 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Jugoslavija2 Poqoprivredni fakultet, Institut za topolarstvo, Antona Åehova 13,21000 Novi Sad, JugoslavijaRezimeU radu su analizirane morfološke osobine (duÿina, preånik i masa) ÿi-ra kod sedamnaest genotipova hrasta luÿwaka (Quercus robur L.) iz vegetativnesemenske plantaÿe Banov Brod (Srem, Vojvodina). Najviše vrednosti mase iduÿine ÿira utvrðene su kod genotipa 5, najveãi preånik kod genotipova 6 i21, dok je genotip 35 imao najniÿe vrednosti mase, duÿine i preånika ÿira.Dobijeni rezultati treba da budu jedna od smernica u odabirawu onih genoti-pova koji daju plodove sa poÿeqnim morfološkim karakteristikama.58

Genotypic variability of morphological characteristics of English oak (Quercus robur L) acorn

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