Growth stresses are a limiting factor in the use of fast growing eucalypts for the production of sawing logs. Further studies are needed for the qualification and mensuration of these stresses in eucalypts trees in Brazil. Thus, the main objective of this work was to evaluate the application of a new instrument, CIRAD-Forêt extensometer, in the measurement of the longitudinal residual strain (DRL) in standing trees of five genetic materials of eucalypts, experimentally cultivated in Aracruz-Espirito Santo, and to correlate the magnitude of such strain with other wood properties and tree dimensions. The results obtained showed that: i) the extensometer is a simple, rapid and reliable instrument to measure and identify trees with different levels of growth stresses; ii) the DRL associated to the growth stresses measured with the extensometer were in average equal to 71 mm; iii) no statistical differences were found in the DRLs measured in different cardinal orientations; iv) the DRLs varied significantly with the genetic material according to the analyses of variance; v) for clone 1, in which the DRLs were measured in two positions along the stem (1.3 m and 2.5 m), the values were similar; vi) among various wood properties, only basic density was positive and significantly correlated with the DRLs when the five genetic materials were analysed together; vii) except for the stability factor (DBH/total height) of variety 5, the correlation between DRL and the tree growth dimensions were not significant when the genetic materials were analyzed separately, however, when the five genetic materials were analyzed together, only total height of the tree did not result in significant correlation with the DRLs; viii) DRL addition to the tree growth dimensions allowed density and several wood mechanical properties to be significantly estimated by multiple models.
Wood; eucalypts; growth stresses
