CORRELATION BETWEEN WOOD DENSITY AND FIBER LENGTH WITH ESSENTIAL MACRO-NUTRIENTS ON BASE OF STEM OF Shorea leprosula and Shorea parvifolia

Abstract

S. leprosula and S. parvifolia are widely developed as source of high quality wood. The quality of wood could be affected by nutrient elements. It is important to measure the nutrients contained in tree stem including wood density and fiber length due to their influence in tree growth. This research aims to know correlation between wood density and fiber length with distribution of essential macro-nutrients; N, P and K on stem base of S. leprosula and S. parvifolia trees. Wood density measurement followed DIN 2135 standard method, fiber length measurement followed FPL method, and nutrient measurement used AAS method. Further, the observation data was analyzed using SPSS 16 software. Wood density and fiber length on stem bases of both of tree species tended to increase radially from section nearby the pith to section nearby the bark respectively. Wood density of S. leprosula ranged from 0.333-0.362 with 1.279-1.343 µm in fiber length, while wood density of S. parvifolia ranged from 0.285-0.346 with 1.497-1.805 µm in fiber length. Distribution of nutrient N, P and K of stem base from pith to bark also tended to increase. On S. leprosula, nutrient elements N, P, K had significant correlation with wood density and fiber length. On S parvifolia, nutrient elements N, P, K had a significant correlation with wood density. Meanwhile, nutrient elements N, P, K had a non significant correlation with fiber length. Keywords : Shorea leprosula, Shorea parvifolia, base of the stem, wood quality distribution, nutrient distribution.