Research on plus tree selection of Cinnamomum cassia in Quang Nam province

Abstract

Cinnamomum cassia is a famous, precious NTFP and medicine of Quang Nam province and Vietnam as well. Cinnamomum cassia is widely planted in 4 districts: Bac Tra My, Nam Tra My, Phuoc Son and Tien Phuoc with current total area about 3,760 ha. The surveyed stands of Cinnamomum cassia has the ages from 15 to 23 years with reproductive mature, flowering and fruiting. The area of stands is not large, varries from 0.5 to 3 ha, almost stands have undergone thinning of lower layer and pruning. The stand density remains about 300 - 2,500 trees ha and unequally distributed. There are only 3 districts (Phuoc Sơn, Nam Tra My and Bac Tra My) that have stands meeting objective of plus tree selection. As a result, 213 plus tree candidates have been selected, of which 150 plus tree candidates have high oil content, varries from 2.2 to 10.73%, on average is 5.83%. There are 137 among 150 plus trees candidates (occupied 91.3%) have oil content > 4%. Cinnamomum cassia has a very good oil quality, total content of Aldehyde cinamic and acid cinamic in the oil is 2.4 - 3.1 times higher than minimum requirement of Hong Kong Medicinal Dictionary (minimum is 1.7%). 100 plus trees with ages of 15 - 20 years and dominant growth of D1,3, Hvn , Dt compared to stand mean values officially selected. The plus trees have thick and very thick bark, varries fro m 6.0 to 13.2 mm at height of 1.3 m. The relative bark area of plus trees varried from 133.5 to 418.5 dm 2 /tree, 40.6 - 159.5% high than average value of the stand. The oil content of plus trees is from high to very high, varries from 4.47 to 10.73%, much higher than requirement of Vietnamese Medicinal Dictionary V (1%). These are good seed sources for Cinnamomum cassia development in Quang Nam province