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Laboratory NIR

Since 2002 we (CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products) have been developing calibrations that predict a range of chemical properties in eucalypt wood.  These include

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  • Kraft pulp yield (at kappa 18) 

  • (diglyme) Cellulose content

  • Hot water extractives

  • Lignin content

Kraft Pulp Yield

This work started in 1992 (Laurie Schimleck and Tony Michell) to prove the concept that NIR offers an effective means of measuring PY in small samples quickly and precisely.  Since 2003 we have been building a multi-site and species calibration (Downes et al 2009) that has undergone many iterations of testing. 

 

Forest Quality offers commercially-ready NIR calibrations for predicting

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  • Kraft Pulp Yield (at kappa 18)

  • Cellulose content (diglyme)

 

Wood samples (e.g. wood chip, increment cores, drill swarf) are ground to woodmeal and spectra collected on a Bruker FT-NIR MPA instrument. 

 

These calibrations are described in the following articles

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  • Downes G.M., Catela F. and Meder, R (2009) Developing and evaluating a multisite and multispecies NIR calibration for the prediction of Kraft pulp yield in eucalypts.  Southern Forests 71(2), 155-164

  • Downes G.M., Meder R. and Harwood C. (2010) A multi-site, multi-species calibration for the prediction of cellulose content in eucalypt woodmeal. JNIRS 18, 381-387

  • Downes, G.M., Meder R. A., Bond H., Ebdon N., Hicks C. and Harwood C.E. (2011) Improved multi-site and species NIR calibrations of cellulose content, Kraft pulp yield and basic density in eucalypt woodmeal.  Southern Forests 73(3-4), 181-186

 

Predictions from these calibrations have been applied in the following studies

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  • Stackpole D.J., Vaillancourt R.E., Downes G.M., Harwood C.E. and Potts B.M. (2010) Genetic control of kraft pulp yield in Eucalyptus globulus.  Can J. For. Res. 40, 917-927

  • Thumma B., Matheson B.A., Zhang D., Meeske C., Meder R., Downes G.M. and Southerton S.G. (2009) Identification of a cis-acting Regulatory Polymorphism in Eucalypt Cobra-like Gene Affecting Cellulose Content. Genetics 183, 1153-1164

  • Freeman et al. 2010

  • Freeman J.S., Potts B.M., Downes G.M., Thavamanikumar S., Pilbeam D.J., Hudson C.J. and Vaillancourt R.E. (2011) QTL analysis for growth and wood properties across multiple pedigrees and sites in Eucalyptus globulus. BMC proceedings 5 (Suppl 7): O8

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