Wood quality of plantation timbers.
1996
Oteng-Amoako, A.
Ghana faced with dwindling forest resource and increasing population pressure on forest land, has no choice but to embark on plantation establishment as future source of timber for the wood industry. Because of accelerated growth and the desire to harvest and utilise plantation timbers at a much younger age, the wood quality of plantation timber in general is less superior to the quality of yesterday's timber from the natural forest. These usually small differences in quality can however be minimised or even eliminated by genetic manipulation, selection of superior genotypes and phenotypes and application of prudent silvilcultural practices in establishment of plantation forest. Adoption of new processing technology can also minimise degrade, increase recovery at the saw and enhance quality of finished products from plantation timbers. The paper traces the main causal effect on wood density- a complex index of wood quality- to the size, composition and content of the four basic cellulosic elements of vessel, fibre, axial parenchyma and ray parenchyma cells. These elements in plantation timbers differ slightly from their natural forest counterparts in their morphology, size, composition and content and are the major cause of relatively low density, low strength properties, more juvenile wood with associated high shrinkage and swelling, high permeability, high susceptibilty to attack by organisms, and higher incidence of growth stress in standing trees.
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Este registro bibliográfico ha sido proporcionado por Forestry Research Institute of Ghana