Asynchronous flowering in clonal seed orchards - An effective strategy for alternative management

Abstract

Tropical forests have long been of interest to biologists because of their high species diversity and their complicated patterns of community organization. The recent ecological studies which have demonstrated that tropical trees are diverse in their reproductive biology and dynamic population structure. Asynchronous fl owering among the clones in a clonal seed orchard is an inherent problem resulting in poor seed and fruit set in them. These results in the complete defeat of the prime objective of establishment of clonal seed orchards (CSOs) i.e. abundant quality seed production poor fl owering and asynchronous fl owering between the clones are a major bottleneck in higher seed set in these clonal seed orchards across the country. Asynchrony found between clones may be attributed to the origin of clones, which are collected from different zonal populations as revealed by isoenzyme and DNA markers studies. This article reviews the work done in CSOs across the world and suggests an alternate strategy in designing the clonal seed orchards of the future. Research Article Asynchronous fl owering in clonal seed orchards An effective strategy for alternative management Soma Mondal1,2*, Ashutosh Srivastava1, Geeta Joshi1 and HC Yashavantha Rao3 1Department of Tree Improvement and Genetics, Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bengaluru, Karnataka-560003, India 2Department of Studies in Microbiology, Manasagangotri, University of Mysore, Mysore, Karnataka-570 006, India 3Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka-560012, India *Address for Correspondence: Soma Mondal, Department of Tree Improvement and Genetics Division, Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka-560003, India, Email: kumar.soma@yahoo.com Submitted: 09 April 2019 Approved: 14 May 2019 Published: 15 May 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Mondal S, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited