Douglas, Have you had a glance on the textbook of Zobel and van Buijtenen from 1989: Wood Variation, its Causes and Control? (Springer Verlag). These guys are dividing forest trees to four groups of species, and their analysis on the effect of growth rate and age on the basic density of wood within any of these groups is quite comprehensive. Although the four groups are somewhat arbitrarily defined, I think this is a very good approach. For example, different kinds of conifers like "hard pines" and "other conifers" behave very differently in this respect. Petri PS Maybe the e-mail group "wood-science" would be a still more suitable forum for this debate. Petri Karenlampi Department of Forest Resource Management FIN-00014 Univ. of Helsinki fax. -358-0-191 7755 Petri.Karenlampi@Helsinki.Fi > Dear members of the newsgroup: > > I have a general question for the group regarding tree growth and > density. At our school (Auburn Univ., Alabama, USA) there is an argument > regarding tree density and whether or not it is significantly affected by > tree growth. There is some South African studies which say that age is not > the true factor, although many of my colleges say that their practical > experience is that it is. I believe that this question would be an > excellent subject for a group discussion, especially since old trees > available for harvest are becoming more and more rare. I look forward to > any comments. > Sincerely yours > Douglas J. Marshall > marshall@forestry.auburn.edu
Mail converted by
MHonArc 1.1.0