SPRUCE AND WOOD QUALITY - GENETIC-ASPECTS (A REVIEW)

This paper is a review based on articles about the genetics of wood qu ality of Norway and Sitka spruce. Among the wood quality traits, wood density is the most widely used. The main topics of the paper are : ge netic control (genetic control of wood density, change of genetic cont rol with age, genotype-environment interaction), young-adult relations hips, relationships between wood density and other wood properties, an d relationships between wood density and growth and adaptation traits (especially about the widely studied unfavourable relationship between diameter growth and wood density). Other wood properties are briefly mentioned, as they were far less studied than wood density. The conclu sion summaries the main trends in the results.