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Abstract
Resin canals are of particular importance to conifer tree defense. The study examined resin canals and wood properties of mature loblolly pine stands that were showing signs of dieback. From Georgia, seven symptomatic stands experiencing dieback and seven asymptomatic stands were sampled with the symptomatic stands sampled just prior to being clearcut. Bark-to-bark core samples were collected at breast height (1.37 m) from 10 ‘healthy’ trees from each stand, and 10 ‘unhealthy’ trees from each symptomatic stand. Ring by ring properties including specific gravity (SG), acoustic velocity, and resin canals were determined from the 210 cores from pith to bark. 24,865 resin canals were measured using image analysis from 24,153 images. Compared to symptomatic unhealthy trees, asymptomatic healthy trees had significantly lower earlywood SG, significantly higher latewood SG, and significantly larger resin canals. The results indicate that the trees experiencing dieback were suffering from stress which impacted their wood anatomy.