Scots pine blister rust is a rust fungal pathogen that has become more noticeable in recent years and has increased in recorded incidence in Northern Scandinavia. This has prompted an initiation of resistance breeding to the fungus in the Northern Swedish pine breeding program. To accomplish this, it is necessary to evaluate the breeding potential for increased resistance and putative impact on other breeding objective traits that may have genetic correlations to resistance. To assess the potential of the trait to be included in the breeding program we examined half sibling families in four trials of which two had high incidence of Scots pine blister rust in a range of 25.4–42.1 %. We assessed vitality and height in one year and rust lesion frequency at two later time points. Keywords: Cronartium pini; Pinus sylvestris; Heritability; Breeding; Genetic correlation; Field trial
