MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF LUMBER FROM PARTIALLY CAD-DEFICIENT LOBLOLLY PINE (PINUS TAEDA)

摘要

Fast-growing loblolly pine produced by the North Carolina State University-Industry Cooperative Tree Improvement Program is a natural carrier of a rare gene, cad-nl, an allele code fordeficiency in cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD), an enzyme that catalyzes the last step in thebiosynthesis of lignin precursors. Wood from totally CAD-deficient loblolly pine trees is known to have low mechanical properties, but not much is known about the mechanical performance of wood frompartially CAD-deficient trees. The effect associated with this genetic modification of loblolly pine was evaluated by comparing the mechanical properties in bending, compression parallel and perpendicular to the grain, tension perpendicular to the grain,and shear parallel to the grain of small clear specimens of wood from partially CAD-deficient with those from wild-type loblolly pine trees. Results indicate that there is no significant difference between the two genotypes for all mechanical propertiesmeasured.