and Chemical

Pine Tree

ELAINE T. HOWARD

ABSTRACT. In three 22-year-old slash pines from an unthinned plantation in centralLouisiana, stemwood comprised 58.5 percent of total ovendry tree weight. Stumps andmain roots made up 16.5 percent, bark 12.5, top of bole 5.0. needles 4.0, and branches3.5. This material now is largely wasted when a tree is harvested; methods of utilizingit would extend fiber supplies by 70 percent. Stemwood had higher specific gravity(avg. 0.47 ovendry weight, green volume) and higher alpha-cellulose content (51percent) than any other tree part. All waste portions had greater lignin and extractivecontents than stemwood. Generally. however, chemical data for stumps and roots didnot differ greatly from that for stemwood. Ash content of all parts was relatively low.

MUCH OF THE TOTAL MASS of a merdlantabletree is in portions not utilized - stump,

roots, bark, brandies, needles, and top - butthe suitability of these materials for specific pur-poses remains relatively unexplored. The seardlfor uses requires knowledge of the properties ofeach portion and the amounts available. Thestudy reported here was undertaken to comparecertain physical and dlemical properties of allportions in three pulpwood-size sle.sh pines(Pilll1J tlliottii vat. tlliottii Engelm.).

been measured (Smith, et aI. 1963; Whittakcet aI. 1963; Metz and Wells 1965), but ana1~of complete trees, including foliage and rooseem to be lacking.

Some information is available on puipi,characteristics of southern pine tree portio[stumps and roots (Kress and Mosher 1943; Steart and ~az 1912); bark and stemwood (lCeU1950; Martin and Brown 1952); stems, to]brenches, stumps, and roots (Gleaton and Sayd

Literature The author is Associate Research Chemist, Souem Forest Experiment Station, USDA For-Service, Pineville, La. The assistance of Bodc:Co., Good Pine, La., is gratefully acknowledg-This paper was received for publication in AUgl1972.

Literature on complete-tree utilization is com-prehensively reviewed by Keays ( 1971 ) . In thesouthern pines, weights of various parts have

APRIL 19312

Table 1. - STEM, ROOT, AND CROWN DATA FOR THREE22-YEAR-OLD SLASH PINES GROWING IN AN UNTHINNED

PlANTATION AT 6- BY I-FOOT SPACING.

T,.. 1 T,.. 2 Tree 3

DBH (In.) 7.9

Height (ft.) 61.5

Merchantabl. stemlength (ft.) 41.7

Maximum top dla.Inside bark (In.1 3.4

live crown width (ft. 1 7.7

Uve crown height (ft. 1 16.1

Stump dla.outside bark (In. 9.S

Stump dia.inside bark (In.1 7.5

Taproot max. dla.outside bark (in.) 13.S

Taproot length (ft.1 4.2

Taproot grftn wi. (lb.1 105

Side roots to 3.footradius green wi. (lb.1 17

7.662.6

45.8 41.7

3.37.8

22.0

3.37.1

19.5

1956; Stewart and Diu 1972). In general, re-sults from pulping experiments indicate that: 1)Wood from the top of the bole should yield pulpsimilar to that from the stem and be suitable foradmixture. 2) Bark in large amounts is detri-mental. 3) Branches larger than 1 inch in diam-eter (without bark) yield less pulp than stemwood;the branchwood pulp has less strength and greaterstretch, and requires less beating, than stem pulp.4) Stumps and roots should yidd pulp of goodquality with somewhat higher burst and lowertear strength than stem pulp (Keays 1971).

The properties of parts other than stemwoodare incompletely known, although considerablework has been done on mineral and moisturecontent of southern pine needles and some datahave been provided on chemistry and specificgravity of southern pine bark (Chang and Mitchell1955; Renfro 1956, p. 32; Browning and Sell1957; Hergert 1960; Harkin and Rowe 1969;Martin 1969; Manwiller 1972). Some referenceson commercial preparation of needle fiber mayalso be found (Record 1916; Mississippi Forestsand Parks 1936).

10.0 9.5

7.3 7.0

12.95.0

102

12.14.1

66

36 13

ProcedureCollection

Stemwooa - the merchantable stem, up to a4-inch top, barkfree (4-inch disb takenat 100-inch intervals).

Bark - inner and outer bark from the mer-chantable stem (horizontal strips takenat 48-inch intervals).

Roots - wood and bark from the main rootsystem, including the 6-inch stump (1-indt disks, the first taken at 1 inch be-low the top of the stump and all othersat 8-inch intervals along the length ofthe tap &nd side roots) .

Top - wood and bark of the bole above themerchantable stem (1/2-inm disks every3 feet).

Branches - wood and bark, including twigsbut excluding dead limbs (l-inm disbtaken every 3 feet).

Fo/iage - all needles, including immaturenew growth (samples from eadt foot ofbranm length).

Green weights of all samples were recorded; allother portions of the trees were weighed and

Three codominant 22-year-old slash pineswere selected from an unthinned plantation (6-by 8-foot spacing) in central Louisiana. The soilwas well-drained to moderately well-dra.ined Rus-ton, intergrading with Beauregard under two ofthe trees.

The trees, described in Table 1, were har-vested in late May. One tree was felled at a time,and the cut surface of the stump was sealed withparaffin. All portions were bagged immediatelyin polyethylene, transported to the laboratory, andweighed green. A circular trench 30 incites deepwas dug on a 3-foot radius around each stump todelimit the portion of the root system obtained.A steel belt was wrapped around the root s~inside the trench, and the stump and roots werepulled out with a tractor. High-pressure hoseswere used to remove adhering soil from the roots.The stumps and main root systen1S are shown inFigure 1.

Each tree was divided into six parts (sam-pling for dJemical analysis and specific gmvitydeterminations is described in parentheses) :

313WOOD SC IENCE Vol. 5, No.4

314

~,

~~

;:

~

,~ ww(t:t- lLJlLJ(t:I- N

I

;.-£;f~.5~

.5'ie!Q

. .' ~

- M

o--.

~O

""""..

1°.!Q

.

0 e

e.. o

.0-Q.~

"",3O-Q

.~

~

""E,~

.ov-~

'-ovo50o;Z

~e

"E>

--2

Q.."

° .

. 0

Q.

,-'

"ov"E--.!

". ~

-."

0"-

-"i~'"

~.:

o~"le!C

')E

~.5~

fiSo:

.. ~

EU

t.."

- .

.2°V-o-ov

~-3~

.:gE&

..oaEE

-e°E

".! O

V&

° ~

.~e

'-08>-E

~..

.-ee

M~

1aov."o~~

.5;2~~

i2

. ° ..1

"U-e1"i~

~~

a~A

=~

~I.E

E;>

-S

°.e!~=

8cE'j"

~E

~-

.-8~

..

~~

a- O

Ut"

jteO.e

~-

Q.

°V

~~

E.§O

tJi=!.!2

l

AP

RIL

19

,

wwCt:

I- rt)

oven dried for determinations of dry weight andgreen moisture content.

Table 2. - DRY WEIGHTS OF VARIOUS TREE PARTSFROM 21-YEAR-OLD SLASH PINES.

Tree 1 TrH2 Tree 3Tree part

(lb.I 191 203 163

54 65 3841 36 4218 14 1512 12 1311 10 12

StemRootsBarkTopNeedlesBranches

Total-283

-a27

-340

Measurements

All specific gravity determinations were basedon green volume and ovendry weight. For calcula-tion of extracted specific gravity, ovendry weightwas reduced by the amount of extractives present.A pycnometer was used to measure green volumeof needles.

Samples for chemical analysis were ground topass a 4Q-mesh screen. A portion of the materialwas extracted successively with alcohol-benzene,alcohol, and hot water for use in lignin, holoceI-lulose, and alpha-cellulose determinations. Ligninanalysis was by the Forest Products Laboratory'smodified hydrolysis procedure (Moore and John-son 1961). Holocellulose and alpha<ellulosewere determined by the method of Erickson(1962) with seven treatment cycles at 30-minuteintervals. Hemicellulose values were obtainedby subtraction of alpha<ellulose from holocel-lulose percentages. Alcohol-benzene extractivecontent was determined by T APPI StandardT60s-59. For total ash content, samples wereoxidized with concentrated HNO., then ignited ina 480.C muffle furnace for 6 hours. Four repli-cations per sample were made for each analysis.

Results for the various tree parts were com-pared by analysis of variance.

with changes in local moisture conditions. Barkcontained much less moisture than other treeportions, even though the inner bark was included.

Unextracted specific gravities of the stemsaveraged 0.46 to 0.48 (Table 3). Needles hadslightly lower values; specific gravities of roots,tops, and branches did not differ significantly atthe 0.05 level. Bark was about two-thirds asdense as stemv/ood.

NEEDLES

TOPResultsStem and root dry weights showed large

between-tree differences (Table 2). Only about59 percent of total tree dry weight was merchant-able stemwood. The other portions, rorrentlyunutilized, represent about 70 percent of the mer-chantable bark-free stem weight (ovendry):

ROOTS

Percent ofmerdlantable

stemwood

Percent oftotal

tree -weight STEMT,. part-

lARK

Stemwood 100.0 58-'Roots 28.2 16.'Bark 21.4 12.'Top 8.5 '.0Needles 6.7 4.0Branches 5.9 3.5

Moisture content of the various portions dif-fered greatly between trees (Fig. 2). Consider-able fluctuations of these values can be expected

50 100 150

MOISTURE CONTENT(PERCENT Of OVENDRY WEIGHT)

Figure 2. - Moisture cont.nt of the various tre. portions,shown by individual tre..

315WOOD' S-CfENC E Vol. 5, No. .

Needles contained more ash (2.4 percent) thanany other part; stemwood (0.3 percent) was low-est. Ash content for bark averaged 0.9 percent-considerably less than the values reported forbarks of other species, particularly hardwoods.The slightly higher ash content of roots may berelated to accidental inclusion of small amountsof soil embedded in the root bark.

Literature Cited

KRE§, 0., and R. H. Mosher. 1943. The pulping ofextracted yellow pine wood chips. Pap. TradeJ. 117 (15):29-34.

MANWILLER, F. G. 1972. Wood and bark proper-ties of spruce pine. USDA Forest Servo Res.Pap. SO- 78. South. Forest Expt. Sta., NewOrleans, La. 25 pp.

MARTIN, J. S., and K. J. BROWN. 1952. Effect ofbark on yield and quality of sulphate pulp fromsouthern pine. Tappi 35:7-10.

MARTIN, R. E. 1969. Characterization of southernpine barks. Forest Prod. J. 19(8) :23-30.

METZ, L. J., and C. G. WELLS. 1965. Weight andnutrient content of the aboveground parts ofsome loblolly pines. USDA Forest Servo Res.Pap. SE-17. Southeast. Forest Expt. Sta., Ashe-ville, N.C. 20 pp.

MISSISSIPPI FORESTS and PARKS. 1936. Pine needleproducts-new state industry. Nav. Stores Rev.and J. Trade 45(45):14.

MOORE, W. E., and D. B. JOHNSON. 1967. Pro-cedures for the chemical analysis of wood andwood products. Rev. USDA Forest Serv., ForestProd. Lab., Madison, Wis.

RECORD, S. J. 1916. The pine needle oil industry:how the thrifty Europeans utilize a wasteproduct of the lumbering industries. Sci. Am.114:100-101.

RENFRO, J. F. 1956. Bark and cambium character-istics of pond pine (Pinus serotina Michx.) andloblolly pine (Pinus taeda L. ) with specialref~rence to fire hardiness. M.F. thesis. N. C.State Coll. Raleigh. 46 pp.

SMITH, W. H., L. E. NELSON, and G. L. SWITZER.1963. The characterization of dry matter andnitrogen accumulation by loblolly pine (Pinustaeda L.) on poor sites. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc.27:465-468.

SPROULL, R. C., R. B. PARKER, and W. L. BELVIN.1957. Whole tree harvesting. Forest Prod. J.7:131-134.

STEWART, J. F., and R. J. DIAZ. 1972. Use of spentstumpwood in linerboard production. Tappi 55:1212-1215.

WHITTAKER. R. H., N. COHEN, and J. S. OLSON.1963. Net production relations of three treespecies at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Ecology 44:806-810.

BROWNING, B. L., and L. O. SELL. 1957. Theanalysis of some fractions of slash pine bark.Tappi 40:362-365.

CHANG, Y. P., and R. L. MITCHELL. 1955. Chemicalcomposition of common North American pulp-wood barks. Tappi 38:315-320.

ERICKSON, H. D. 1962. Some aspects of method indetermining cellulose in wood. Tappi 45:710-719.

GLEATON, E. N., and L. SAYDAH. 1956. Fiberdimensions and papermaking properties of thevarious portions of a tree. Tappi 39:157A-I58A.

HARKIN, J. M., and J. W. ROWE. 1969. Bark andits possible uses. USDA Forest Servo Res. NoteFPL-091. Forest Prod. Lab., Madison, Wis.42 pp.

HERGERT, H. L. 1960. Chemical composition oftannins and polyphenols from conifer wood andbark. Forest Prod J. 10:610-617.

KEAYS, J. L. 1971. Complete-tree utilization-ananalysis of the literature. Part I. Unmerchant-able top of bole. Part IL Foliage. Part III.Branches. Part IV. Crown and slash. Part V.Stump, roots, and stump-root system. Can. Dep.Fish. and For., Forest Prod Lab. Info Rep.VP-X-69, 98 pp.; Part ll, Inf. Rep. VP-X-70, 94pp.; Part llI, Info Rep. VP-X-71, 67 pp.; PartIV, Info Rep. VP-X-77, 79 pp.; Part V, Info Rep.VP-X-79, 62 pp.; Vancouver, B. C.

KELLER, E. L. 1950. Effect of bark in the neutralsulphite semichemical pulping of aspen, hickory.and slash pine. Tappi 33:556-560.

WOOD SCIENCE Vol. 5, No.4 317