Wood structure of Populus alba formed in a shortened annual cycle system

Abstract

Wood formation of trees that grow along the seasons has an annual rhythm. Due to this rhythm, physiological research on the mechanism of wood formation has been difficult to conduct in a typical experimental room. In the present study, we observed the wood tissue formation in a shortened annual cycle system, which was developed for poplar trees grown in a growth chamber with dormant and non-dormant cycles. Poplar trees were grown in this system by repeating the cycle three times. The resulting wood tissue consisted of three growth rings and very similar structures were observed around the ring boundary of the wood in a field-grown stem. This result suggests that the shortened annual cycle system can be adopted as a model for physiological, cell biological and molecular research of wood and annual ring formation.