Eucalyptus grandis has a mixed-mating reproductive system. Malagasy Eucalyptus seed orchards were established 15 years ago with two aims both based on panmixia: open-pollinated seed production and genetic improvement. The panmixia hypothesis has never been confirmed in the seed orchard. From a seedling seedorchard stand comprising 349 trees and using data obtained with six selected microsatellite markers, paternity analysis was performed for 724 offspring collected on 30 adult trees. Paternity assignment, based on exclusion procedures and likelihood-ratio method, was achieved with high accuracy; the exclusion probability value was 0.997. The outcrossing rate was very high (96.7%). More than 50% of potential male trees (199 out of 349) in the seed orchard contributed to pollination for 440 offspring of 30 progenies (8.6% of the basic population). The pollination rate from outside the seed orchard was high (39.2%), but might be due to the small size of this seed orchard. This study showed that "panmixia-like pollination" can be assumed.

Visible-near-infrared hyperspectral imaging was tested for its suitability for monitoring the moisture content (MC) of wood samples during natural drying. Partial least-squares regression (PLSR) prediction of MC was performed on the basis of average reflectance spectra obtained from hyperspectral images. The validation showed high prediction accuracy. The results were compared concerning the PLSR prediction of MC mapping from raw spectra and standard normal variate (SNV) treatment. SNV pretreatment leads to the best results for visualizing the MC distribution in wood. Hyperspectral imaging has a high potential for monitoring the water distribution of wood. (Résumé d'auteur

Introduction Non-structural carbohydrates and phenolic compounds are implicated in the natural durability of wood. In order to find the chemical traits of natural durability in teak wood, the radial distribution of phenolics compounds and non-structural carbohydrates were studied in trees ranked by contrasting natural durability class against Antrodia sp. • Methods Non-structural carbohydrates were analyzed by spectrophotometry after enzymatic assays and phenolics compounds using HPLC.• Results High concentrations of starch, sucrose, glucose, and fructose were found in the sapwood, whereas only trace amounts were found in the heartwood. In the sapwood, low concentrations of H1 (a hydroxycinnamic acid derivative) were specifically detected. Tectoquinone was also detected in the sapwood but its content increased dramatically in the heartwood. 2-(Hydroxymethyl)anthraquinone and P1, an unidentified compound, were only detected in the heartwood and at high concentrations (>3 mg equivalent 5-methoxyflavone g −1 dry weight. Lower concentrations of 1,4-naphthoquinone, anthraquinone-2-carboxylic acid, and lapachol were also only detected in the heartwood. H1 and tectoquinone present in the sapwood could be considered as phenolic precursors of the synthesis of heartwood toxic phenolics in the heartwood. • Conclusion Correlations between natural durability and chemical composition of heartwood (quinone derivatives, P1, and non-structural carbohydrates) suggest that P1, 2-(hydroxymethyl)anthraquinone and tectoquinone could be natural durability traits. Heartwood extractives, mainly quinone derivatives, were formed from nonstructural carbohydrates which were weakly correlated to natural durability.

all rights reserved c cIrad-BIoS department, 73 rue Jean-françois Breton ta a-39, 34398 Montpellier cedex 5, franceScientific contributions have shown good results by using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a rapid and reliable tool for characterising lignocellulosic materials. Many reports have evaluated the predictive power and the robustness of the NIR models by means of methods known to validate them. However, in most of these investigations, the samples were divided systematically into two non-independent groups: one group was used to build and the other to validate the NIR models. This approach does not adequately simulate a real situation in which the properties of unknown samples should be predicted by established NIR models. Hence, the aim of this paper was to evaluate the robustness of models based on NIR spectroscopy to predict wood basic density in Eucalyptus urophylla using two totally independent sample sets. Wood density and NIR spectra were measured in diffuse reflectance mode on transversal, radial and tangential surfaces of wood samples in two data sets. We used one data set to build partial least squares regression (PLS-R) models and another to validate them and vice versa. The predictive models developed from the radial surface NIR spectra proved satisfactory with r² p varying from 0.79 to 0.85 and RPD ranging from 2.3 to 2.7, while the spectra measured on tangential and transversal wood surfaces generated less robust regression models. Our results showed that it is possible to assess wood density in unknown samples by established PLS-R models from solid wood samples preferably using radial surfaces.