balsa wood (Ochroma lagopus) is an important tropical fast-growing timber species and is widely used in wind power blades and aerospace fields.
Recently, the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted research on the problem of insufficient prediction of seedling growth potential in balsa hybrid breeding. The study selected 9 balsa hybrid lines from different geographical parents, and measured 22 functional traits such as leaf photosynthesis, structural mechanics, and hydraulic structure at the seedling stage through a homogeneous garden comparative test system, and monitored the line growth indicators for a long time.
Research results show that there is a significant trade-off relationship between leaf structural traits and photosynthetic traits of balsa hybrid lines, and leaf water conduction efficiency is negatively correlated with structural input, mechanical resistance, and drought tolerance-related traits. The growth performance of each hybrid strain was significantly different and closely related to functional traits. Characteristics had a high explanation of growth variation (53%–86%). Lines with a higher growth rate adopt a resource-acquisition survival strategy, showing higher photosynthetic rate, leaf nitrogen content, and phosphorus utilization efficiency; lines with a lower growth rate tend to adopt a conservative strategy and have advantages in specific leaf weight, leaf thickness, water retention capacity, and mechanical strength of stems and leaves. In addition, compared with most stem traits, leaf functional traits have a stronger ability to predict growth performance and can be applied to early screening of excellent balsa wood lines.
该研究构建了基于功能性状的轻木早期品种筛选技术框架，揭示了不同杂交品种“获取—保守”的性状权衡格局。这一成果为定向杂交育种及缩短育种周期提供了重要实践依据，突破了以往依赖长期生长观测的局限。
相关研究成果发表在Industrial Crops & Products上。研究工作得到国家自然科学基金、云南省基础研究计划和云南省“兴滇英才支持计划”等的支持。
Balsa wood is widely used as filling core material for wind turbine blades
Source: https://www.cas.cn/syky/202609/t20260902_5119534.shtml