Age trends and correlations of growth and wood properties in clone of Eucalyptus urophylla × E. grandis in Guangdong, China

Abstract

We assessed growth traits and wood properties of DH32-29, a clone of Eucalyptus urophylla × E. grandis, at age of two to six years in Guangdong in China. Analysis of variance of studied traits showed that there were significant differences (1% level) on all studied traits among ages except for wood basic density. Analysis of age trends of growth traits and wood properties revealed that rotation length of DH32-29 should be more than six years or longer. Phenotypic correlations among traits at individual ages indicated that correlations between growth traits were strongly positive. There was significant change in relationship between growth and wood basic density with increasing age, ranging from −0.03 to −0.54 at 2 and 5 year and 0.003 to 0.3 at 3, 4 and 6 year. Correlations between Pilodyn pin penetration and basic density measured on increment cores showed that Pilodyn could rank or group genotypes or sites into density classes, but failure to predict individual tree and individual clone.

Keywords

eucalypt / age trends / growth traits / wood properties / correlation / nondestructive methods