Variations in wood tratis in micro and macro propagated plantation woods of Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh

The paper presents a comparison between intra-ramet, intra-clonal and inter-clonal variations in girth at breast height (gbh), fiber length, fiber diameter, wall thickness, vessel element length, vessel element diameter and specific gravity in the ramets of L34, G3 and S7C15 clones of Populus deltoides at the age of 6 years old produced from planting material grown by macro- and micro-propagation techniques. Variance ratio (F) test indicated that intra-ramet variations were non-significant for all the characters except specific gravity for height in L34 for macro and specific gravity and vessel element diameter for radial locations for micro, and fiber length for G3 (micro) for height, and specific gravity for radial location and fiber length for height for S7C15 clone for both the techniques. The clone L34 showed the significantly higher girth followed by G3 and S7C15. The variations were significant for girth, vessel element length and specific gravity between the wood produced from planting stocks grown by two techniques. Intra-clonal variations were significant for fiber length, fiber diameter and vessel element length. In general wood element’s dimensions and specific gravity increased from bottom to top and pith to periphery radial locations. G3 clone was different from the L34 and S7C15 clone for the wood traits. The three different clones of Populus deltoides showed variability in wood anatomical properties and specific gravity in the woods grown from macro- and micro-propagated planting stock. So, the plantation raised by two techniques could not produce similar type of wood even from the same clone. G3 clone was the exception as it did not show variation in wood traits for two techniques. Intra-clonal variations in all the three clones of P. deltoides indicated that wood traits were not stable within the population of same clone grown by either method.