Programs of forest tree breeding: foreign and home experience (review)

A short analysis of breeding programs for European (Sweden, Finland, and Poland) and North American (the USA, Canada) countries is provided. Due to special importance of Swedish experience for our country its practice and results are considered in details. Swedish programs included selection of plus trees, field tests of their posterity, hybridization of the best plants, and a set up of per forest seed regions with specialized breeding population consisting of the 50 best trees. The posterity of these population is used for further selection and set up of forest seed orchards. In the last decade, Sweden developed 7 alternative strategies of breeding. A short summary on the mentioned strategies is provided. It is shown that in our country, some time ago the works on the breeding programs’ development and seed production were undertaken. Contemporary development of new programs is necessary to secure high practical results for our forestry. New programs will also help to prevent negative consequences induced by negligence of the last years. They have to include: development of cultivar ideal or improved material; selection of existing or development of new breeding methods; study, collection, and conservation of initial materials for breeding; production of high quality or improved material; cultivar testing and distribution into districts of the most valuable breeding materials; use of perspective reproduction methods, etc. The process of cultivation requires consideration of characteristic features inherent to forest tree species, natural and economic conditions of the regions, and prospects of their development.