Effect of Moisture Content on the Assessment of Wood Quality for Known-Source Genetic Material

The study material was sampled from a red pine progeny test/seedling seed orchard machine planted with 3-0 planting stock at 1.8 x 2.4 meter spacing in Central Wisconsin in 1970. It contains over 300 four-tree row plots per replication following the randomized complete block design. Only 25 families were selected in the present study for which the degrees of freedom were 24, 4 and 96 respectively for family, blocks and error. A one-inch thick circular-shaped disk specimen was cut at 0.2 meter from the ground from each of 125 sample trees in 1980. The wood specimens were debarked and ovendried to arrest mold development. They were then immersed completely under fresh water to ensure their green wood condition for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 15 weeks; at the end of each i mmersion period, I determined their green volume and specific gravity. Each set of wood data was subjected to an analysis of variance. Family means were used as items in the simple correlation analysis correlating between wood properties evaluated at the different immersion periods. The wood properties obtained after 15 weeks of immersion were compared with those obtained at the shorter periods. The correlation coefficients were 0.989 or greater for the green volume and 0.991 or greater for wood specific gravity. Three to five weeks of fresh water immersion was suggested to bring the disk wood specimens from air/ovendry to green wood condition for the purpose of the genetic assessment of wood quality.

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Author(s): Chen Hui Lee

Publication: Tree Improvement and Genetics - Northeastern Forest Tree Improvement Conference - 1985