TO IMPROVE THE PRESENT SITUATION IN TRADING, TO PRODUCE REPRODUCTIVE MATERIAL AND TO ESTABLISH BASIS FOR FURTHER GENETIC BREEDING WORK.

A. DESCRIPTION OF GENETIC RESOURCES:
THE AIM IS TO OBTAIN ALL RELEVANT CRITERIA TO CHARACTERIZE THE VARIOUS OAK POPULATIONS ON A SPECIES AND A PROVENANCE LEVEL. INVESTIGATIONS WILL BE MADE ON DIFFERENT POTENTIAL CRITERIA: ISOZYMES, POLYPHENOLIC COMPOUNDS AND MORPHOLOGICAL MAKERS.

B. IMPROVEMENT OF REPRODUCTIVE METHODS:
IMPROVING THE REPRODUCTIVE METHODS WILL PARTIALLY SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF IRREGULAR FRUITING. CONCERNING SEXUAL REPRODUCTION, RESEARCH WILL FOCUS ON FLORAL BIOLOGY, POLLINATION MECHANISM, STORAGE AND MANAGEMENT OF POLLEN, EARLY FLOWER INDUCTION. CONCERNING VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION EMPHASIS WILL BE PUT BOTH ON CUTTING AND IN VITRO PROPAGATION.

C. METHODOLOGY OF SELECTION FOR QUALITY CRITERIA:
THE OBJECTIVE IS TO DETERMINE ADEQUATE SELECTION CRITERIA THAT CAN BE USED AS ROUTINE PROCEDURE IN SILVICULTURE, OR ANY SELECTION EXPERIMENT. THE RESEARCH CONSISTS IN THE COMPARISON OF WOOD DENSITY SHRINKAGE AND ANATOMY DATA OBTAINED IN INCREMENT CORES OF SAMPLED TREES WITH THE FURTHER USE (VENEER ABILITY) OF THE TIMBER OF THE SAME TREES.

D. APPLIED IMPROVEMENT:
GENETIC VARIABILITY WILL BE STUDIED IN ACTUAL EXISTING TRIALS. EXPERIMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED ON LONG TERM ACORN STORAGE. IT IS PLANNED TO COLLECT PROVENANCES OVER THE NATURAL RANGE OF THE EUROPEAN OAKS TO REALIZE A MULTI LOCAL COMPARATIVE PROVENANCE TRIAL IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. THE RESEARCH PROJECT CONCERNS THE TWO NATIVE OAKS (QUERCUS ROBUR L. AND QUERCUS PETRAEA LIEBL.) AND QUERCUS RUBRA L. AN EXOTIC SPECIES THAT WAS WIDELY INTRODUCED IN DIFFERENT EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.