Introduction experiment of bio-energy plant Xanthoceras sorbifolia in the gully region of the loess tableland residue in Shanxi Province,northern China.

In order to screen out suitable Xanthoceras Sorbifolia varieties for the gully region of the loess tableland residue in Shanxi Province of northern China, we took provenance trials with six seed sources, including Chifeng of Inner Mongolia, Tianshui of Gansu, Wuzhong of Ningxia, Yangling of Shaanxi, Baoding of Hebei and Jixian of Shanxi, observed each seed emergence rate and analyzed their physical growth characteristic indexes. The results showed that there was a significant difference in seed emergence rate and the one-year-old seedling growth among each other. And the plant height differed a lot as the variation of seed emergence rate, between which positive correlation existed. Seedlings grew the strongest with seeds of highest emergence rate from Wuzhong and Tianshui. However, none of the second year seedlings increment was related remarkably with seed emergence rate. Seed characters had less effect on the seeding growth in the second year, and the environmental impact strengthened instead. Seedlings with provenances Tianshui and Wuzhong grew fast and stable, while Jixian, the local, appeared advantageous adaptability to the environment. There was also an obvious difference in net photosynthetic rate among the six, and Wuzhong, Tianshui, Chifeng had stronger photosynthetic ability relatively. To sum up, it could be approximately concluded that Wuzhong and Tianshui were the fine X. Sorbifolia seed sources adaptable to the gully region of the loess tableland residue in Shanxi Province, northern China