Treesearch

The 2018 Woody Crops International Conference was held from 22 to 27 July 2018 throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin, USA, to unite world-leading short rotation woody crop (SRWC) organizations at a forum designed to enhance information exchange while also building a platform for developing future collaboration around SRWC production systems. The meeting included pre-conference and post-conference tours in Minnesota and Wisconsin and technical sessions in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Technical sessions were framed under the topics: Genetics and Physiology, Phytotechnologies, Stakeholders, Bioproduct...

The Little Missouri National Grassland is the largest designated National Grassland in the United States and represents one of the best examples of intact native mixed-grass prairie in the United States. The Little Missouri National Grasslands occurs entirely within the Williston Basin, which has been a leading source of conventional oil and gas production since the 1950s. Recent advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (since 2000) have greatly increased energy extraction activities on the Little Missouri National Grassland. The objective of this assessment is to synthesize...

We applied a range of bole and root damage treatments to young Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco) trees. Significant natural damage occurred to tree crowns over the course of the 10-year study allowing for an analysis of how damage severity to tree boles, tree roots, and tree tops impacts growth and cumulative survival of trees. Tree bole damage severity, measured by percent bole circumference removed, exponentially reduced cumulative survival across the study period, whereas damage to tree roots had no significant impact on survival. Bole damage had different impacts on...

Amphibians are declining worldwide due to habitat destruction, disease, and environmental stressors. Extremely variable breeding populations and a paucity of long-term monitoring data limits rigorous testing of amphibian population trends, or bias associated with sampling regimes. We used 24 years of continuous trapping data to compare annual probability of presence, and population trends and statistical power for six species among seven wetlands using five sampling scenarios (SS) based on the interval and span of years analyzed. Richness within a year and wetland ranged 29–89% of total...

Forest managers use mastication to grind or shed vegetation to remove competition, prepare a site for natural or artificial regeneration, or release sapling-sized trees; or they use mastication to convert ladder fuels to surface fuels and enhance decomposition of biomass. However, determining the best mastication configuration within the context of management objectives and site limitations is challenging. This report synthesizes our current knowledge on mastication as a forest management tool. We found that excavators, skid steers, and tractors can all be carrier machines and different...

In the present study, the authors explored the viability of dry-spinning to produce cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) and polylactic acid composite fibers from dimethylformamide solutions. Fiber surface morphology, crystallinity and mechanical properties were assessed for fibers with 0, 1, 3 and 5 wt% CNCs. The fiber morphology transitioned from smooth to sharkskin to severe melt fracture with increasing extrusion speed. Surface morphology appeared to be weakly dependent on CNC content and addition of CNCs did not reduce melt fracture. Addition of 1 wt% CNC resulted in the highest crystallinity,...

The improved fungal decay resistance exhibited by modified wood has been attributed to inhibited diffusion of decay precursors and subsequent degradation products through the wood cell wall. However, data relating the effect of modification to diffusion through wood cell walls is lacking. Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy paired with an in situ humidity chamber was used to observe the transport of an implanted model metabolite, potassium (K+) ions, in wood cell walls as a function of relative humidity (RH) and extent of the wood modification acetylation. The RH threshold for K+...

Persian walnut (Juglans regia L.) is known to have originated in central and eastern Asia. Remnants of these wild populations can still be found in the Hyrcanian forest in north-eastern Iran. In this study, 102 individual walnut trees from four geographic populations in the Azadshahr province (Vamenan, Kashidar, Rudbar and Saidabad) were sampled. We characterized individual trees using 28 standard morphological traits. The range of traits varied widely for some economically important characteristics including nut weight (6.1–19.79 g), kernel weight (2.9–9.4 g), and kernel fill percentage...

Koa (Acacia koa) are tropical hardwoods endemic to the Hawaiian archipelago and a source of highly figured wood. Technological advancements, combined with our greater understanding of wood fiber development, allow us to use more in depth methods to study the figured wood phenomenon. This study represents the first transcriptomic analysis of figure formation in koa. Transcriptome profiles of figured and non-figured koa indicated that 19 genes were differentially expressed (DE) to a significant level (FDR < 0.05) between highly figured (HiFig), lightly figured (LoFig), and non-figured koa...

Koa (Acacia koa) and sub-species koaia (A. koaia) are two of more than 1,200 species from the genus Acacia within the Leguminosae (also designated Fabaceae) family. In the past, koa and koaia forests were found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago but populations have dramatically decreased. Comprehensive analyses of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) have not been published previously. Here we use genome sequencing and bioinformatics tools to report development of 100,000+ nuclear SSR (nuSSR) markers for use in koa and koaia genome studies with transcriptome SSR information was included for...