INTERSPECIFIC VARIABILITY OF SOME ACCESSIONS OF SALIX SP. COLLECTED FROM OLTENIA REGION, ROMANIA

Abstract

The Salix genus includes many species with various uses: wood production, biomass, animal feed, source of salicylic acid, land reclamation, biofuel, a.o. In order to establish a collection of potential genitors, source of resistance genes to various stressors, 39 accessions were collected in 2015 from Banat and Oltenia, Romania. This paper presents an evaluation of 20 accessions, belonging to 7 species, collected from polluted or degraded lands in Oltenia. The intra- and interspecific variability, analyzed through the prism of the production characters for SRC, is significant. The study gives the possibility of selecting some valuable genitors, for a breeding strategy and creation of new forms more adapted to the new environmental challenges. The best results regarding biomass production, sprouting capacity and growth rate were recorded by some accessions, belonging to the species S. triandra, S. viminalis, S. fragilis.