Study on the Variation of Wood Property of Juvenile Populus cathayana among and within Provenances

The wood property of 3-year-old trees of Populus cathayana from 24 different provenances were measured.It has been revealed that there are variations both in the wood properties of different individuals and provenances. The variation of basic wood density between different provenances was higher than those of different individuals. The wood density increased with the increase of latitude. There was variation in the characteristics of the fibres and vessels from different provenances when the number of the measured individuals was larger. There was a weak negative relationship between the fibres and vessels and the latitudes. There was a higher variance within the fibres and vessels of the same individual,for this reason it's necessary to have a large number of samples for the measurement of fibres and vessals. When making a breeding improvement,it's better to adopt suitable strategies for different purposes.