Evaluation of poplar inter-specific progenies based on their morphologic and micro-morphologic traits

In this study, numerous crosses were initially performed between male and female parents of two poplar species, P. euphratica Oliv. and P. alba L.. Aseptic immature hybrid embryos were cultured on MS medium to produce hybrid seedlings. Several morphologic and micro-morphologic characteristics of a great number of three year-old seedlings of new genotypes based on six half-sib families were recorded with three replications, with the aim to assess possible potentials of the hybrids between the two species. An additional goal was to compare the hybrids of P. alba as either male or female parents. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the families. Two crossings, P. alba×P.euphratica and P. euphratica×P. alba, formed two distinct groups for some of the characteristics which partially implied maternal effects of inheritance on the traits. Range of the attributes was significantly wide, as for example the progenies varied between 24 and 424 cm of height. The most noticeable difference was observed on stomata characters. The hybrids with the two species as their female parent showed significantly different behaviors on several traits. The total average of leaf upper side stomata number was 123 for the crosses with P. euphratica as female parent, whereas the value was 4.8 in the crosses with P. alba as female parent. The variation might be beneficial is selecting superior genotypes to introduce new poplar varieties.