Finnvid Prescher thesis

Thesis title: Prescher F 2007 Seed Orchards – Genetic Considerations on Function, Management and Seed Procurement. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae 2007:75.

Thesis chapters (studies) in their finally published form:

Prescher, F., Lindgren, D., Almqvist, C., Kroon, J., Lestander, T. and Mullin, T. 2007. Female fertility variation in mature Pinus sylvestris clonal seed orchards. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 22: 280-289.

El-Kassaby, Y.A., Prescher, F. and Lindgren, D. 2007. Advanced generation seed orchards as affected by breeding advance, timing of seed crop, and cost components with special reference to Scots pine in Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 22:88-98.

Moriguchi, Y, Prescher, F. and Lindgren, D. 2008. Optimal lifetime for Swedish Picea abies seed orchards. New Forest 35:147-157.

Lindgren, D. and Prescher, F. 2005. Optimal clone number for seed orchards with tested clones. Silvae Genetica 54: 80-92.

Lindgren, D., Tellalov, Y. and Prescher, F. 2007. Seed set for Scots pine grafts are difficult to predict. In Isik, F. (ed) Low input breeding and conservation of forest genetic resources. Proceedings of the IUFRO Division 2 Joint Conference. Antalya, Turkey, 9-13 October 2006. pp 139-141.

Kroon J, Wennström U, Prescher F, Lindgren D and Mullin TJ 2009. Estimation of clonal variation in seed cone production over time in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) seed orchard Silvae Genetica:  58(1-2):53-62.

Prescher, F., Lindgren, D. and El-Kassaby, Y. 2006. Is linear deployment of clones optimal under different clonal outcrossing contributions in seed orchards? Tree Genetics and Genomes 2:25-29.

Prescher, F., Lindgren, D. and Karlsson, B. 2008. Genetic thinning of clonal seed orchards using linear deployment may improve both gain and diversity. Forest Ecology and Management 254: 188-192..

Prescher, F, Lindgren, D., Wennström, U., Almqvist, C., Ruotsalainen, S. and Kroon, J. 2005. Seed production in Scots pine seed orchards. In Fedorkov, A. (ed) Status, monitoring and targets for breeding programs. Proceedings of the meeting of Nordic forest tree breeders and forest geneticists, Syktyvkar. pp. 65-71.

Bilir, N., Prescher, F., Ayan, S. and Lindgren, D. 2006. Growth characters and number of strobili in clonal seed orchards of Pinus sylvestris. Euphytica 152:293-301.

Bilir N, Prescher F, Lindgren D & Kroon J 2008.Variation in cone and seed characters in clonal seed orchards of Pinus sylvestris .  New Forests 36:187-199

Nine published papers in six journals (100 % publication success) and two proceedings articles.

Assisting supervisor was Ola Rosvall

Popular presentation: Lindgren D and Prescher F 2008. Bättre fröplantager för Sveriges framtid. Skogfakta – 2.

Pressrelease om Skogsfakta 2 i samband med avhandlingen

Registration as Ph D student was at 040812  and the dissertation 070928 = 38 months.

It is fair to say that the PhD work actually started already in June 2004, and it took some time to get the paper work done.

During the thesis work Finnvid was 100% employed by Svenska Skogsplantor as seed manager (the largest seed management operation in Sweden). His employer accepted that 20% time was used for doctoral studies. Extra costs for the thesis work was financed by the Swedish Association for Forest Tree Breeding. Participation of foreigners in the project has been supported by a variety of foreign grants, and besides that by the faculty for forest sciences, the Kempe foundations and Svenska institutet.

The first decision made by making this thesis was that the dissertation would take place on my 65 year birthday (actually the Day after to have it on a Friday, which is better for parties). That was because of my feeling of a responsibility to the Swedish forest not to distract the attention of the major Swedish seed manager from his ordinary extremely important job. Therefore we put a firm limit on the investment in the thesis. When we were approaching the end of it, we realised that it would have been easy to extend the target with say four studies making the thesis more spectacular and more outstanding, but that would have stolen time from more important duties, and we never dreamt about this thesis a worthy an ODRA. Thus Finnvid is honourable excused for not being the winner among this ODRA winners concerning number of papers in the thesis. It is also so that behind a success is usually a spouse who makes the ground service and accepts a larger share of that during the study. But in this Finnvid is happy enough to have a wife (Elizabeth) who is also Finnvid's assistant with the company management and was qualified to make more of the ground service needed to keep the company floating during the thesis work.