Thesis (Ph.D. Chemistry)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1998. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 6, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 2003. / Thesis documentation sheet inserted. Appendix includes reprints of five papers and manuscripts, four co-authored with others. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued electronically via World Wide Web in PDF format; online version lacks appendix.

Pinus radiata is by far the dominant species grown in New Zealand plantations as a renewable source of wood. Several wood quality issues have been identified in the material produced, including the high incidence of compression wood, which is undesirable for end users. At present our understanding of the complex array of developmental processes involved in wood formation (which has a direct bearing on wood quality) is limited. Hence, the forest industry is interested in attaining a better understanding of the processes involved. Towards this goal, and for reasons of biological curiosity, the experiments described in this thesis were carried out to investigate several aspects of xylem cell development. In an in arbor study, changes in the orientation of cortical microtubules and cellulose microfibrils were observed in developing tracheids. Results obtained provide evidence that cortical microtubules act to guide cellulose synthase complexes during secondary wall formation in tracheids. The mechanisms involved in controlling cell wall deposition in wood cells are poorly understood, and are difficult to study, especially in arbor. A major part of this thesis involved the development of an in vitro method for culturing radiata pine wood in which hormone levels, nutrients, sugars and other factors, could be controlled without confounding influences from other parts of the tree. The method developed was used in subsequent parts of this thesis to study compression wood development, and the influence of the hormone gibberellin on cellulose microfibril organisation in the cell wall. Results from the in vitro compression wood experiments suggested that: 1. when a tree is growing at a lean, the developing cell wall was able to perceive compressive forces generated by the weight of the rest of the tree, rather than perceive the lean per se. 2. ethylene, rather than auxin, was involved in the induction of compression wood. Culture of stem explants with gibberellin resulted in wider cells, with steeper cortical microtubules, and correspondingly steeper cellulose microfibrils in the S2 layer of developing wood cells. This observation provides further evidence that the orientation of microtubules guides the orientation of cellulose microfibrils. Overall, the work described in this thesis furthers our knowledge in the field of xylem cell development. The stem culture protocol developed will undoubtedly provide a valuable tool for future studies to be carried out.

The primary objective of this study was to find out if changes in chemistry could be used to quantify Pinus radiata compression wood severity or degree of compression wood development. Basic chemical composition and the lignin structure was assessed for a range of different compression wood samples sourced from juvenile wood, mature wood, earlywood, latewood, branches, knots, 2-year and 1-year old Pinus radiata. Fluorescence microscopy was used as the reference method to assess the degree of compression wood development. Lignin structure of compression wood was studied by thioacidolysis, size exclusion chromatography, and thioacidolysis/31P NMR spectroscopy. Variation in the basic chemical composition and lignin structure with compression wood severity was ascertained. Results showed that, as the severity of compression wood changed, progressively from normal through mild to severe, all chemical parameters commonly associated with compression wood changed concurrently. With increasing severity lignin and galactose levels increased while glucose and mannose levels decreased. Lignin structural changes were also associated with changing severity of compression wood. Levels of p-hydroxyphenyl (H) releasable β-ethers increased and guaiacyl (G) releasable β-ethers decreased. Similarly, levels of uncondensed p-hydroxyphenyl units increased, while uncondensed guaiacyl units decreased. Similar proportions of condensed guaiacyl units were present in compression wood and normal wood. Similar trends in chemical composition were observed between the compression wood and related opposite wood in branches, knots and young wood of Pinus radiata. A number of chemical parameters changed linearly with compression wood severity. They were: the amount of lignin and galactose, the galactose/glucose ratio and p-hydroxyphenyl content in lignin. Parameters based on the p-hydroxyphenyl unit content in lignin, the H/G releasable β-ether ratio, releasable p-hydroxyphenyl β-ether units and uncondensed p-hydroxyphenyl C9 units are most suitable indicators of compression wood severity as they spanned a larger range relative to the normal wood levels and were not influenced by the morphological origin of wood samples. Chemical methods for quantifying compression wood severity should focus on the detection and measurement of these parameters. Galactan present in Pinus radiata compression wood was isolated and characterised. Structural investigation by methylation analysis and NMR spectroscopy revealed that this galactan was largely composed of (1→4)-linked β-D-galactopyranose residues. No evidence was found to indicate the presence of any branches. Characterisation of lignin in cell wall fractions of Pinus radiata normal wood revealed that middle lamella lignin has a higher lignin content, a lower amount of releasable β-ethers and a more condensed lignin than the secondary wall lignin. Levels of releasable p-hydroxyphenyl units were not higher in middle lamella lignin. A new method based on thioacidolysis and 31P quantitative NMR spectroscopy for estimation of the degree of lignin condensation of the phenolic and etherified C9 units in in situ wood lignin is described. Using this method it was found that phenolic C9 units in in situ lignin were considerably less condensed than etherified C9 units in both compression wood and normal wood.

Pinus radiata is by far the dominant species grown in New Zealand plantations as a renewable source of wood. Several wood quality issues have been identified in the material produced, including the high incidence of compression wood, which is undesirable for end users. At present our understanding of the complex array of developmental processes involved in wood formation (which has a direct bearing on wood quality) is limited. Hence, the forest industry is interested in attaining a better understanding of the processes involved. Towards this goal, and for reasons of biological curiosity, the experiments described in this thesis were carried out to investigate several aspects of xylem cell development. In an in arbor study, changes in the orientation of cortical microtubules and cellulose microfibrils were observed in developing tracheids. Results obtained provide evidence that cortical microtubules act to guide cellulose synthase complexes during secondary wall formation in tracheids. The mechanisms involved in controlling cell wall deposition in wood cells are poorly understood, and are difficult to study, especially in arbor. A major part of this thesis involved the development of an in vitro method for culturing radiata pine wood in which hormone levels, nutrients, sugars and other factors, could be controlled without confounding influences from other parts of the tree. The method developed was used in subsequent parts of this thesis to study compression wood development, and the influence of the hormone gibberellin on cellulose microfibril organisation in the cell wall. Results from the in vitro compression wood experiments suggested that: 1. when a tree is growing at a lean, the developing cell wall was able to perceive compressive forces generated by the weight of the rest of the tree, rather than perceive the lean per se. 2. ethylene, rather than auxin, was involved in the induction of compression wood. Culture of stem explants with gibberellin resulted in wider cells, with steeper cortical microtubules, and correspondingly steeper cellulose microfibrils in the S2 layer of developing wood cells. This observation provides further evidence that the orientation of microtubules guides the orientation of cellulose microfibrils. Overall, the work described in this thesis furthers our knowledge in the field of xylem cell development. The stem culture protocol developed will undoubtedly provide a valuable tool for future studies to be carried out.

This study approaches wood quality in young trees by very early screening – and consequent selection for propagation – on the basis of physical and mechanical properties. In chapter 1 corewood properties are reviewed and the importance and problems associated with early screening are discussed. Due to randomly distributed reaction wood in young trees it is advantageous to lean trees to avoid intermixing of the two wood types and minimise any uncertainty in the results. In chapter 2 physical and mechanical properties are described for opposite and compression wood in a population of Pinus radiata comprising of 50 families, at a young (<3 years) age. The dynamic stiffness was determined using the resonance acoustic technique. Density was measured using water displacement method, and longitudinal and volumetric shrinkage were measured from green to ~5% moisture content. The compression wood and opposite wood differ significantly in all the measured properties. Compression wood was characterised by high density and high longitudinal shrinkage. The mean stiffness of opposite wood was 3.0 GPa with a mean standard deviation of 0.39, and the mean longitudinal shrinkage of opposite wood was 0.99% with mean standard deviation of 0.31 across the samples examined. This variation in stiffness and longitudinal shrinkage in opposite wood can be exploited to screen for wood quality. The variation in stiffness and longitudinal shrinkage within a family was comparable to variation among families. In spite of large within site variability it was possible to distinguish between the worst and the best families in opposite wood at young age. In chapter 3 ranking of selected families of Pinus radiata was done based on microfibril angle, which is considered as the main factor influencing both stiffness and longitudinal shrinkage. The ranking was compared with ranking done using acoustic velocity which is more practical and fast method of screening trees. The mean MFA in opposite wood was 39° with a mean standard deviation of 3.7 and in compression wood the mean MFA was 44° with a mean standard deviation of 2.9. The variation in MFA in opposite wood offers opportunities to breed for trees with low MFA. A strong negative correlation (R=-0.68) between acoustic velocity squared and MFA in opposite wood suggested that the resonance technique can be used effectively to screen very young wood rather than using MFA. At high MFA, the cell wall matrix also plays an important role in determining the mechanical and physical properties of the wood. At present the chemical composition of wood samples is determined by wet chemical analysis, which is time consuming and laborious. Therefore, it is impractical to characterise large numbers of samples. Mechanical properties, particularly tanδ (dissipation of energy), which changes with temperature and frequency as the structure of the material changes at the molecular level, was studied using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The idea was to assess if it can be used as a quality trait for tree screening instead of wet chemical analysis. Compression wood and opposite wood were characterised for storage modulus and tanδ at constant moisture content. In practice the instrument used, TA instrument Q800, was unable to provide the desired range of temperature and humidity so no glass transition at 9% moisture content in the temperature range of 10°C to 85°C at 1 and 10 Hz frequency was observed that might be attributed to the hemicelluloses (or lignin). In spite of the huge difference in chemical composition of opposite and compression wood, the difference in their mean tanδ at 25°C and 1 Hz values was just 7%. The positive correlation between MFA and tanδ in opposite wood suggested that MFA also plays a role in the dissipation of energy. The strong relationship between storage modulus and dynamic modulus (R=0.74) again justifies the reliability of resonance technique to screen young wood for stiffness. Concurrently eighty seven, two-year-old leant Eucalyptus regnans were studied for growth strains along with other physical and mechanical properties, independently in tension and opposite wood. The leant trees in Eucalyptus regnans vary in their average growth strain. Strong correlation between measured and calculated strain (R=0.93) suggests that the quick split method can be used to screen large populations for growth stresses. Tension wood was characterised by high density and was three times stiffer than opposite wood and twice as high in volumetric shrinkage. The high longitudinal shrinkage in opposite wood could be due to comparatively high MFAs in opposite wood of the young trees. There was no correlation between growth strain values and other measured properties in opposite wood. It is possible to screen for growth strain at age two, without any adverse effect on stiffness and shrinkage properties.

The aim of this PhD project was to transfer the remarkable mechanical properties of compression wood to technical applications. Compression wood can be strongly deformed because of its high cellulose microfibril angle and allows permanent plastic deformation without significant damage. These special features of compression wood make this material particularly suitable for the three-dimensional processing of veneers. By applying advanced technologies high deformation levels were achieved. / Das Anliegen dieses Promotionsprojektes bestand in der Überführung der beachtenswerten mechanischen Eigenschaften von Druckholz in eine technische Anwendung. Druckholz kann aufgrund seines großen Cellulose-Mikrofibrillenwinkels stark verformt werden und erlaubt eine permanente plastische Verformung ohne signifikante Materialschädigung. Insbesondere diese Eigenschaften lassen Furniere aus Druckholz für eine dreidimensionale Verarbeitung geeignet erscheinen und führen unter Verwendung neuartiger Verformungstechnologien zu hohen Verformungsgraden.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-118). Also available via the World Wide Web.