Relationships involving several types of extractives of five native argentine wood species of genera Prosopis and Acacia

The relationships existing among the values obtained when extracting the wood of four Argentinean species of Prosopis (P. alba, P. kuntzei, P. nigra, and P. ruscifolia) and one of the Acacia (A. aroma) by several procedures were evaluated and discussed. The used methods were: extraction in toluene/ethanol and hot water; determination of tannic and non-tannic content; measurement of phenolic compounds. Additionally, liquid chromatography (HPLC) was also used in order to quantitatively evaluate the content of (−)-mesquitol, a relatively unusual flavonoid (flavanol type). The total amount of Oxidation Products was also measured. They result from oxidation and polymerization processes of phenolic compounds occurring during heartwood formation, and were not separated during chromatographic analysis. Data evidenced a linear trend (R²=0.970) between organic and tannic extractives of all species, and a similar one (R²=0.927) between total phenols and tannic (or organic) extractives in the case of heartwood of Prosopis species. Interestingly, for sapwood very different values of organic extracts, tannic content or Oxidation Products type compounds were measured in spite of a similar amount of phenolic substances. Moreover, the various species presented the same peaks in chromatograms, thus evidencing the chemical similarity of compounds but a different quantity between heartwood and sapwood and also among the various species. The observed similarity implied that the various methods of extraction did not really extract only a single class of substances, and that great care must be adopted when using some specific procedures for extractions. Furthermore, the existing relationships between extractives and selected technological properties, namely specific volumetric shrinkage coefficient (BSvol) and natural durability (evaluated in terms of mass loss after fungal attacks in laboratory conditions), were given. It appeared that in heartwood BSvol was well correlated to organic extractives (R²=0.984), thus evidencing the microimpregnation of cell walls by extractives, but the fitting quality of the correlation was dependent on the type of extractives used. Analogously, a good relationship between mass loss and phenolic compounds existed (R²=0.764), and in this case the value of R² was even more dependent on the considered extracts. Moreover, the availability of quantitative data on several Prosopis species allowed to consistently evaluate the bioactivity of (−)-mesquitol on the resistance against fungal attack, and the logarithmic form of the relationship between mass loss and (−)-mesquitol content suggested a direct fungicidal activity of this compound. On the other hand, data also evidenced that neither phenolic compounds nor (−)-mesquitol can be considered as the unique and definite factor able to determine the durability of the considered species.