Growth ring width and wood density of Sessile oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) on Prosara Mt

Abstract

In the Republic of Srpska total area of high sessile oak forests is 76 900 ha, and the area of coppice sessile forests is 180 700 ha. The share of high oak forests in the total area of high forests in the Republic of Srpska is about 10%, and the share of coppice oak forests in total area of coppice forests is about 30%. In evaluation the quality of wood, it is very important to know what kind of relationship exists between the growth ring width and specific properties of wood. One of these properties is density of wood, the most important indicator of quality. In this paper density of wood of fourteen sessile oak trees from seed stands on the mountain Prosara was analyzed and its dependence on growth ring width and the width of the late wood. It was found that the average width of the annual rings in the sample is 1.62 mm with a variation of a width of 45.76%. The average value of the air dry density, for all tested trees was 0.747 g/cm³, with an average coefficient of variation of 13.28%. Testing of dependence between density and growth ring width showed a trend of increasing density with increasing growth ring width with a significant correlation (r = 0.3647).