An approach to quantify natural durability of Eucalyptus bosistoana by near infrared spectroscopy for genetic selection
Introduction
Wood is a biodegradable material. To ensure a long service life in unfavourable environments timber is often treated with toxic preservatives (NZS3640, 2003; Treu et al., 2019) creating hazardous waste (Townsend and Solo-Gabriele, 2006). However, the heartwood of some species is highly resistant against biodegradation, able to substitute preservative treated timber for in-ground or marine applications (AS5604, 2005; Scheffer and Morell, 1998). Unfortunately such highly naturally durable timber is not common and often sourced from unsustainably or illegally harvested tropical forests (Nellemann, 2012). As such resources are dwindling, there is an opportunity to sustainably grow naturally durable timber species in fast-growing, short-rotation plantations (Bhat et al., 2005; Bush et al., 2011; Dünisch et al., 2010; Stirling et al., 2015).
Eucalyptus bosistoana heartwood is listed as class 1 ground-durable, able to last more than 25 years in the ground according to the Australian Standard (AS5604, 2005) and has many other favorable properties such as fast growth (Poynton, 1979), some frost tolerance (Hamilton, 1983) and high stiffness (Bootle, 2005). E. bosistoana has been chosen by the New Zealand Dryland Forests Initiative (NZDFI) to establish a sustainable plantation resource of naturally durable timber to, in the first instance, supply posts for agricultural industries (Millen et al., 2018).
The natural durability of heartwood is variable, both within (Sherrard and Kurth, 1933) and between trees (Bush et al., 2011; Hillis, 1987). Durability standards, which have been developed largely for old-growth native forest resources, recommend the use of the generally better performing outer heartwood of mature trees (AS5604, 2005). Therefore, good resistance to biodegradation of the timber, which is grown in short-rotation plantations needs to be ensured. A breeding programme can ensure quality, as the variation in decay resistance between individual trees of a species is partially under genetic control (Bush et al., 2011; Harju and Venalainen, 2002; Yu et al., 2003).
A major impediment for the inclusion of natural durability into tree breeding programmes, which rely on large sample numbers, is the laborious and time consuming nature of the available methods for assessing durability (AWPC, 2007). While field tests are not only affected by environmental factors such as soil, temperature and rainfall, they also, in particular for class 1 durable timber which needs to last more than 25 years in ground, carry on for decades. Alternatively, accelerated laboratory tests can be used for screening, but suffer limited transferability to real-life conditions as they are specific to the limited number of organisms included in the test (Jacobs et al., 2019). Laboratory test results are more comparable between laboratories but still take several months to complete. Consequently, a rapid and efficient method for durability assessments is needed.
Apart from wood anatomy (Meyer-Veltrup et al., 2017), a key factor determining the natural durability of heartwood is the presence of secondary low molecular weight organic compounds, the so called extractives (Hawley et al., 1924; Rudman, 1964). Therefore in a first instance, the extractive content (EC) in heartwood may provide an indirect measure of relative decay resistance and therefore could be used as an alternative way to assess natural durability within species (Morris and Stirling, 2012). Again solvent extraction methods are costly and laborious, requiring thorough sample preparation (TAPPI, 2012) and hence are unsuitable when large tree breeding populations are concerned. However, Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) spectra, contain information of the chemical composition of materials. NIR spectra are quickly acquired with affordable instrumentation from solid wood samples, reducing demand on sample preparation and measurement (Schimleck et al., 2005). NIR spectroscopy has been successfully used to accurately predict the EC in wood (Li and Altaner, 2018; Ribeiro da Silva et al., 2013; Schimleck et al., 2009) and subsequently employed in a tree breeding programme (Li et al., 2018).
NIR is also able to successfully predict non-chemical wood properties such as stiffness or density by multivariate statistical analysis (Tsuchikawa and Kobori, 2015). Not surprisingly some attempts were made with varying success to use the technology to predict fungal decay resistance directly rather than the correlated EC (Bush et al., 2011; Gierlinger et al., 2003; Jones et al., 2011).
The objectives of this study were: firstly to verify the current procedure of selecting E. bosistoana of high EC in a breeding programme to improve durability. Secondly use this dataset to determine how precisely mass loss by fungi can be predicted from NIR spectra and thirdly to explore the potential of applying the NIR calibrations for decay resistance to a tree breeding trial.
Section snippets
Materials
Origin of the 1765 E. bosistoana heartwood samples has been described in detail (Li and Altaner, 2018; Li et al., 2018). In brief, 41 open-pollinated E. bosistoana families were grown at two different sites in the South Island of New Zealand in 2010, including the Craven Road (Longitude: 173°56′, Latitude: 41°26′) and Martin (Longitude: 172°39′, Latitude: 43°11′) sites studied in detail here (Li et al., 2018). The sites were on alluvial soils and experienced an average annual rainfall of around
Decay tests of E. bosistoana heartwood
The ML data ranged from -0.3 % to 59.9 % with an average of 9.62 % for the white-rot fungus Perenniporia tephropora and from -0.50 % to 48.7 % with an average of 7.82 % for the brown-rot fungus Coniophora olivacea (Table 1). The extractive content of the heartwood in the trees was predicted by NIR (pEC) and varied from 0.63 % to 17.20 % with a mean of 7.68 %. Negative correlations between pEC and ML for white-rot (r = -0.32, P < 0.01) and brown-rot (r = -0.42, P < 0.01) were observed. Samples
Decay tests of E. bosistoana heartwood
A stratified sample from more than 1700 cores was used to obtain a broad range of pEC for the assessment of ML. The broad range in ML benefited the multivariate statistics used for NIR calibration (Martens and Næs, 1984). Large variation in ML by wood rots is commonly reported (AWPC, 2007; Brischke et al., 2013; Bush et al., 2011; Harju and Venäläinen, 2006; Jones et al., 2011). The higher ML by the white-rot (P = 0.013) indicated that it is a bigger threat to E. bosistoana heartwood and a more
Conclusion
Fungal decay tests validated that on average the resistance of E. bosistoana heartwood against wood decay increased with pEC. This confirmed that the use of a quick assessment of extractive content as a proxy measurement for natural durability, which is currently used in a commercial E. bosistoana breeding programme (Li et al., 2018; Millen et al., 2018), should result in a more durable resource.
Further, it was possible to predict mass loss of E. bosistoana heartwood from NIR spectra combined
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yanjie Li: Visualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Monika Sharma: Data curation, Writing - review & editing. Clemens Altaner: Visualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Laurie J. Cookson: Methodology, Investigation, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding from New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Partnership for Speciality Wood Products (contract FFRX1501). We would like to thank NZDFI for access to trials and data and Meike Holzenkämfer for technical assistance.
References (53)
- et al.
Natural durability of important European wood species against wood decay fungi. Part 2: field tests and fungal community
Int. Biodeter. Biodegr.
(2019) - et al.
Predicting extractives content of Eucalyptus bosistoana F. Muell. Heartwood from stem cores by near infrared spectroscopy
Spectrochim. Acta A Mol. Biomol. Spectrosc.
(2018) - et al.
A review of variable selection methods in partial least squares regression
Chemometr. Intell. Lab. Syst.
(2012) - et al.
Regression rules as a tool for predicting soil properties from infrared reflectance spectroscopy
Chemometr. Intell. Lab. Syst.
(2008) - et al.
EPO–PLS external parameter orthogonalisation of PLS application to temperature-independent measurement of sugar content of intact fruits
Chemometr. Intell. Lab. Syst.
(2003) - et al.
Interpretation of variable importance in partial least squares with significance multivariate correlation (sMC)
Chemometr. Intell. Lab. Syst.
(2014) Timber - Natural Durability Ratings
(2005)Protocols for assessment of wood preservatives
- et al.
Wood durability of home-garden teak against brown-rot and white-rot fungi
Trees
(2005) Wood in Australia. Types, Properties, and Uses
(2005)
Natural durability of timber exposed above ground-A survey
Drvna Ind.
Genetic variation of natural durability traits in Eucalyptus cladocalyx (sugar gum)
Ann. For. Sci.
Determining the natural durability of eucalypts in Australia
New Zealand Dryland Forests Initiative, Workshop, Durable Eucalypts on Drylands: Protecting and Enhancing Value Blenheim
Wood properties of juvenile and mature heartwood in Robinia pseudoacacia L
Wood Sci. Technol.
Rapid prediction of natural durability of larch heartwood using Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy
Can. J. For. Res.
Heartwood extractives and lignin content of different larch species (Larix sp.) and relationships to brown-rot decay-resistance
Trees
ASReml User Guide Release 3.0
Eucalyptus as a landscape tree
Genetic parameters regarding the resistance of Pinus sylvestris heartwood to decay caused by Coniophora puteana
Scand. J. Forest. Res.
Measuring the decay resistance of Scots pine heartwood indirectly by the Folin-Ciocalteu assay
Can. J. For. Res.
Heartwood extractives and natural durability of plantation-grown teakwood (Tectona grandis L.) - a case study
Eur. J. Wood. Wood. Prod.
The relation between durability and chemical composition in wood
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.
Function, Formation and Control of Heartwood and Extractives, Heartwood and Tree Exudates
Natural durability of the heartwood of coast redwood [Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don) Endl.] and its prediction using near infrared spectroscopy
J. Near. Infrared. Spec.
Heartwood of Cupressus lusitanica, C. macrocarpa, Leyland and Ovens cypress and prediction of its durability using near-infrared spectroscopy
Eur. J. Wood. Wood. Prod.
Genetic variation in heartwood properties and growth traits of Eucalyptus bosistoana
Eur. J. For. Res.
Cited by (11)
Genetic variation in drying collapse and heartwood properties at mid-rotation age of Eucalyptus globoidea
2023, Industrial Crops and ProductsEvaluation of weight loss and high heating value from biomasses during fungal degradation by NIR spectroscopy
2022, FuelCitation Excerpt :Similar results for weight loss predictions were found by [52], studying Trametes versicolor (white-rot) inoculation in samples of Populus deltoides (cottonwood) over eight consecutive days, as a short degradation time. There, Rp values equal to 0.65 and 0.57 for the NIR spectrum treated with first and second derivatives were obtained, respectively. [20] used white-rot and brown-rot for fungal decay tests on Eucalyptus bosistoana heartwood samples from two different sites in New Zealand.
Predicting bleachability of Eucalyptus mechanical pulp by moisture content-dependent near-infrared spectroscopy
2022, Industrial Crops and ProductsCitation Excerpt :Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been proven an effective and promising technique in the rapid analysis of the wood property and pulp quality (Tsuchikawa and Kobori, 2015). Based on the development of calibration models, NIR spectroscopy can predict a wide range of wood properties including chemical composition and physical properties, and has been successfully applied in genetic selection and tree breeding programs (Li et al., 2020; Li and Altaner, 2019; Schimleck and Evans, 2004). NIR spectroscopy, combined with SilviScan analysis, can provide a cost-saving approach for examining the within-tree variation of wood properties.
Heritable variation in tree growth and needle vegetation indices of slash pine (Pinus elliottii) using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
2021, Industrial Crops and ProductsCitation Excerpt :Some families with a variety of optimal traits are selected for certain breeding targets. These results are similar to some previous breeding studies using high-throughput large sample measurements, such as leaf color content from Sassafras tzumu families (Li et al., 2019) and heartwood extractive contents and mass loss from Eucalyptus bosistoana breeding trials (Li et al., 2020) using NIR technology. The existence of statistically significant heritable variation in VIs, spectral reflectance bands, and growth traits in slash pine was confirmed.
Overview of applications of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy in wood science: recent advances and future prospects
2024, Journal of the Indian Academy of Wood ScienceEffects of physicochemical characteristics on natural durability of eucalypts woods to wood-decaying fungi
2024, Journal of Wood Chemistry and Technology