Synopsis Forest trees posess behaviour similar to that of annual plants and other living organisms. Following the overwhelming success in plant breeding across the world, research programmes on tree breeding were also launched in forestry in the middle of the last century. Currently considerable knowledge has been generated in tree improvement, but there are only a limited number scientific publications collating all the available information. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) mooted the idea of compiling the state-of-the-art information from actual field workers and teaching personnel of State Agricultural Universities in the selected areas, so as to serve as a resource material for the graduate students.