As South Africa is a timber-scarce country, it is not surprising that there is predicted to be a shortage of softwood timber within the next 10 years. One of the solutions under investigation is to use hardwoods – mostly Eucalyptus – as structural timber, as they are relatively plentiful in South Africa. One of the biggest underlying problems with this approach is that this genus is prone to cell wall collapse and excessive shrinkage, leading to major problems in the sawmills due to the deformed wood planks. This project aims to investigate candidate wood properties suspected of influencing cell wall collapse in E. grandis, looking at environmental factors and silvicultural regimes that influence these wood properties. With this data we can gain a better understanding of the “cause of the causes”. This will provide us with the necessary knowledge to suggest different silvicultural techniques if needed for the purpose of growing E. grandis with wood less prone to collapse.
