Fiona S. Poke

Annals of Forest Science, is a source of information about current developments and trends in forest research and forestry

Near infrared reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy can be used to reliably predict both the physical and chemical wood properties of Eucalyptus. However, studies have been based on ground wood, which is costly and time‐consuming to obtain. Predicting wood traits from NIR spectral data taken from solid wood would greatly increase the speed and cost‐effectiveness of this procedure. Existing ground wood calibrations were evaluated for the prediction of wood chemistry from NIR spectral data taken from solid wood. Extractives, acid‐soluble lignin, and Klason lignin contents were poorly predicted. Total lignin and cellulose contents showed moderate relationships between laboratory values and the NIR predicted values. NIR calibrations were further developed specifically for predicting wood chemistry from solid wood. All calibrations had high R² values from 0.72 to 0.88, and standard errors of calibration were less than 1.37%. Calibration validation produced high correlation coefficients between predicted and laboratory values for extractives, Klason lignin, total lignin, and cellulose contents with R² values ranging from 0.67 to 0.87. Acid‐soluble lignin content was poorly predicted. This study showed that NIR analysis on solid wood of E. globulus could be reliably used to predict extractives, lignin, and cellulose contents. It also determined that existing ground wood calibrations, although they could give crude estimates of the wood chemistry values, would need to be re‐developed for accurate predictions from solid wood.

Eucalyptus L’Hérit. is a genus comprised of more than 700 species that is of vital importance ecologically to Australia and to the forestry industry world-wide, being grown in plantations for the production of solid wood products as well as pulp for paper. With the sequencing of the genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa and the recent completion of the first tree genome sequence, Populus trichocarpa, attention has turned to the current status of genomic research in Eucalyptus. For several eucalypt species, large segregating families have been established, high-resolution genetic maps constructed and large EST databases generated. Collaborative efforts have been initiated for the integration of diverse genomic projects and will provide the framework for future research including exploiting the sequence of the entire eucalypt genome which is currently being sequenced. This review summarises the current position of genomic research in Eucalyptus and discusses the direction of future research.