WOOD RESEARCH Volume 67, Number 5, 2022
Karol Tomczak, Przemysław Mania, and Arkadiusz Tomczak

Wood density and annual ring width of pedunculate oak from stands grown on former agricultural land

The main aim of this study was to determine differences in basic density and average annual ring width of pendulate oak wood collected from trees grown on former agricultural land and on forest land, using a dimensional method. The experiment was carried out in the western part of Poland, near to Poznan, which is in the central part of the European range of pedunculate oak. In our study the average basic density was 0.528 g.cm-3, and the value for former agricultural land was lower by 0.026 g.cm-3 than that for forest land. Differences in basic density values between these two land types were statistically significant. The average annual ring width in samples collected from forest land in our study was 2.48 mm, samples from former agricultural land were characterized by wider average annual rings. The results suggest that there are significant differences in quality of wood from former agricultural land and from forest. However, from view of wood quality and applications the difference is not important.

WOOD RESEARCH Volume 61, Number 5, 2016
Ignacio Javier Diaz-Maroto and Sylvain Tahir

Analysis of physical properties of wood in three species of Galician oaks for the manufacture of wine barrels Part i: Wood infradensity

The current study about physical properties of wood of Quercus robur L., Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl., and Q. pyrenaica Willd. in Galicia (northwest of Spain) was based on the determination of proportion of sapwood, heartwood, infradensity, and porosity to understand and estimate the variation of these characteristics and/or properties in the Galician oaks. For this, it was necessary to fell several trees within the study area. In total, 45 trees were chosen in 15 different stands of provinces of Lugo and Ourense, i.e., we have obtained 45 wood slices of Quercus at 60 cm tall on the trunk of the tree, and 194 wood samples with a parallelepiped shape and dimensions of 2×2×4 cm ± 1 mm. The infradensity characterization reveals that oak wood from Galicia has a greater infradensity than French oaks, and Quercus pyrenaica has a higher infradensity than Q. robur and Q. petraea. There is a strong variation of the same based on the geographic origin, but there is almost no variation inside a plot. The global objective was to realize a detailed description on the physical properties of wood of these species for its possible use in industry cooperage. For this, the objective of this initial work was to begin with the study of wood infradensity.