Determination of monosaccharide composition of Eucalyptus globulus wood by FTIR spectroscopy

FTIR spectroscopy was used to estimate monosaccharide content in Eucalyptus globulus wood, using the natural variability of the species for calibration and validation of the method. A total of 38 samples from 9 year old trees from provenance trials was used. The composition ranged for glucose from 43.2 % to 59.5 %, for xylose from 9.4 % to 17.8 %, for galactose from 0.5 % to 5.4 %, for mannose from D Sb to 2.8 %, and for rhamnose from 0.3 % to 0.8 %, based on extractive-free dry wood. The multivariate analysis gave in general, better results with increased R-2, lower SEC and SEP errors, although the univariate method also gave good fits with high coefficient of determination (R2) based on remaining data once outliers were removed. FTIR techniques may be used in large scale breeding programmes to measure wood monosaccharide composition with considerably less effort and in shorter time than wet-lab methods, once a reliable calibration has been made for the species.