Wood Properties of Detarium senegalense, a lesser used tropical timber growing in Nigeria.

Abstract

The wood products sector in Nigeria is currently performing below optimal capacity as a result of increasing scarcity of economic wood species. In order to adequately cater for products requirement of Nigerians locally, the sector has incorporated lesser used wood species into its stream of raw materials requirement.  One of these species commonly found in sawmills and plank depots in the country is Detarium senegalense. As the properties of wood determine its utilization potentials, this study was carried out to determine the wood properties of D. senegalense.  The basic density is 610kg/m3.  This is within the range of the economic species currently used in the wood products sector.  However, the heartwood constitutes only 9.02% of the total volume fraction.  The sapwood constitutes 75.98%, and the bark 15%.  The low percentage of heartwood in contrast with the high volume of sapwood indicated that the wood may not be durable in service.  The mean age is 47 years while the mean diameter is 21cm indicating that it is a small diameter hardwood.  The vessels elements, fibres, axial and ray parenchyma cells constitute 9.28, 31.4, 30.6 and 28.72% respectively.  The number of vessel per mm3 is 13.62 while those of fibres are 3301 per mm3. The relative high proportions of the fibres may have contributed to its high density.