%0 Research article
%T Developing a Scots pine breeding objective: a case study involving a Swedish sawmill
%A Berlin, Mats
%A Lönnstedt, Lars
%A Jansson, Gunnar
%A Danell, Öje
%A Ericsson, Tore
%D 2010
%J Silva Fennica
%V 44
%N 4
%R doi:10.14214/sf.132
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/132
%X The aim of this study was to develop a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.)  breeding objective for a vertically integrated sawmill in northern  Sweden. The production system was defined as comprising the sawmill and  the forests supplying it. Volume per hectare, wood density, survival and  straightness were used as objective traits and the related selection  criteria were measurements, collected at young tree age, of height,  diameter, pilodyn penetration, vitality and straightness. A bio-economic  model was used to calculate economic weights for the objective traits  identified. We also investigated the efficiency of different selection  indices based on these economic weights, in combination with available  data on genetic parameters. Furthermore, we studied the effect of  different discount rates on the calculated economic weights. The results  showed that, compared to the full index (which included all selection  criteria), omitting either vitality or straightness had a negligible  effect, reducing predicted profit gain per hectare by less than one per  cent. Height or diameter each had a greater effect, with a loss of  predicted profit gain per hectare of up to 6%. Excluding pilodyn  penetration from the selection index caused the largest reduction in  predicted profit gain per hectare, amounting to over 10%. However, when  both height and diameter were removed the predicted profit gain per  hectare dropped to one-third of that based on the full index. Finally,  ranking and genetic selection for the developed breeding objective was  insensitive to changes in the discount rate.