Thursday, March 8, 2012

Acacia & Eucalyptus Species

I always thought that these two species belongs to the softwood category, until 2 days ago a Swedish forester corrected me and say both of it belongs to the hardwood category. For some expert in forestry, this maybe a kindergarten post for you. 

Hardwood / softwood categorize into types of woods in trees, leaves, shape and fiber.

Description
Hardwood
Softwood
Wood type
Angiosperm (flower with seed producing plant)
Fiber
Long fiber
Short
Leave
Broad leave
Pine

Acacia and Eucalyptus species are often mistaken as softwood due to their wood density. Both are fast growing species, from 6-8 years can give you a yield of 1-2 cubic meters per tree. And also, as they are much preferred species for pulp production. People often thinks  that softwood tree species are selected for pulp production, but the core of pulp making is hardwood species, because of the long fiber nature. Long fiber makes paper much more harder during the pulp processing, enable them to combine (like finger joint process) and easier to be drawn or printed on. 

Normally softwood species are selected in the tissue manufacturing as with the short core nature, makes tissue firm, easy to tear and translucent. Something I would like to keep in mind about.

Acacia mangium

Eucalyptus
~Everything goes back to the basic~

No comments: