A new method of determining growth stress and relationships between associated wood properties ofEucalyptus globulusLabill

Summary A new method developed at CSIRO allows longitudinal growth strain and dynamic Young's modulus in the fibre direction to be measured on the same specimen. From these two properties, longitudinal growth stress can be readily calculated by multiplying the two. In this study, growth strain, density and dynamic Young's modulus were measured on fifty-four specimens removed from 10-y-old plantation-grown trees of Eucalypts globulus Labill. The correlation between growth strain and density was found to be significant but weak (r 2 = 0.27, P < 0.05). There was no significant relationship between growth strain and Young's modulus. The large variation in growth strain (coefficient of variation = 62%) but a relatively small variation in Young's modulus (coefficient of variation = 18%) resulted in a strong linear correlation between growth strain and growth stress.