Radial variation of wood properties in Neolamarckia cadamba trees from an East Java community forest

Abstract

Radial variations in wood properties, cell morphologies and cell proportions were investigated for nine 4-year-old Neolamarckia cadamba trees planted in a community forest in East Java, Indonesia. The relationships between
stem diameter and wood properties, cell morphologies or cell proportions were determined to ascertain the effects of stem diameter on these properties. In the radial variations, almost all of the wood properties, cell morphologies and cell proportion in N. cadamba were changed at around 4 to 6 cm distance from the pith, except for fibre diameter, and the proportion of fibre and axial parenchyma. For trees with larger stem diameter, the vessel diameter was also found to increase. In addition, the ray parenchyma and cell wall proportions in trees with larger stem diameter were lower than those in trees with smaller stem diameter. However, the wood properties obtained from the larger stem diameter trees did not always show lower values. The wood properties in N. cadamba were correlated to fibre wall thickness and vessel diameter.

Keywords: cell morphologies, cell proportion, radial variation, wood properties, xylem maturation