IBN AL- HAITHAM J. FO R PURE & APPL. SC I. VO L.24 (1 ) 2011 Effect of Soil Polluted with Crude Oil on Some Wood Properties of Casuarina equisetifolia B. A. Abd Ali , H. H. Ali Natural History Research Ce nter & Museum university Of Baghdad Recei ved in ,24,Jan,2010 Accepted in , 25, April ,2010 Abstract The current exp eriment was conducted to exp lore the effect of soil crude oil ( crude oil ) p ollution on some wood p rop erties of Casuarina equisetifolia. Four levels of p ollution were app lied on 40 (one-year) old seedlings . M easurements were taken by cutting the trees after two growt h seasons from date of p ollution .The studied Prop erties were fiber length, diameter, wall thickness, and sp ecific gravity of external and internal wood. Results showed an adverse effect of p ollution on fiber diameter more than on fiber len gth. While wall thickness did not affect. Fiber dimensions of external wood showed higher values than that of internal one, esp ecially for fiber len gth. Sp ecific gravity was affected by p ollution and its interaction. A significant increase in sp ecific gravity was observed with higher p ollution levels for e xternal wood only i.e. for the two lay ers formed after p ollution. Introduction Casuarina equisetifolia, is a sp ecies belonging to the family Casuarinaceae which has been divided into four genera, viz: Casuarina, Allocasuarina, Gymnostoma, Ceuthostoma [1] . The genus Casuarina contains about 70 sp ecies native to the old world trop ics [2]. It has the ability to grow on p oor sites by enhancing their cap acity to form sy mbiotic root nodules which are cap able of fixing atmosp heric nitrogen. The nodules contain Actinomycete bacteria thought to belong to the genus Frankia [3]. The same author mentioned that Casuarinas are also known to develop p roteoid roots and extensive mycorrhizal associations which probably assist in their nutrition. Egy ptians p lanted the trees along the coast to p rotect houses from the wind and salt sp ray [4]. C. equisetifolia is tall ever green tree. It can reach heights of over 30 m. The branches often droop ing, sulcate, gr een, with 6–8 scalelike leaves. Internodes 5–7.5 mm long on the branchlets, only 2.5 mm on main shoots. M ain shoots minutely hairy , with small recurved scales about 2.5 m m lon g, usua lly 8 in a whorl [4]. They are extremely accepting of salt sp ray and p oor beach soils. Its nut-let fruits ½ in. in diameter embody winged seeds.. Common names are ironwood, beefwood, she oak, and horsetail tree [5] . The wood of Casuarina is d ense and very hard, , sp lits easily , and burns slowly with little smoke or ash. It makes an excellent fuel, used p articularly in India and China, p roducing good h eat and bein g relatively smokeless when burnt . C. equise tifolia is reputed to be the best fuel wood sp ecies in the world. The app earance of the wood, caused by dark-colored, wide medullary rays, makes it att ractive for wood turning and p arquetry . The timber is also used for p ulp in Philipp ines and Okinawa, and it is widely grown as a windbreak in southern coast al China and also around citrus groves in Florid a [3]. IB N AL- HAITHAM J . FOR PURE & APPL. SC I. VO L.24 (1) 2011 It is well known t hat soil pollution interrup ts p hy siological p rocesses carried out by p lant. The different kinds and levels of p ollution could result in different effects on the p lant. On the other hand, different p lant sp ecies don’t have similar resp onses to p ollution. Crude oil p ollution have adverse effects on soil fertility and p lants p roduction through altering p hy siological p rocesses and anatomical st ructures of cells and tissues. Some researchers worked in this field and reported that crude oil sp illage on soil makes it unsatisfactory for p lant growt h [6 , 7] Iraq as an oil p roducer country , its soil often exp oses to crude o il p ollution during oil p roduction, refining, and transp ortation. C. equisetifolia, as a p redominant cultivated sp ecies throughout the country and because the foregoing p rop erties of the tree and its wood , it was chosen to be tested under the influence of crude oil p ollution. In a p revious research, the effect of p ollution on the p lant growt h was studied [8]. Durin g this exp eriment , wood element p rop erties and sp ecific gravity were selected as a st udied factors, since no much works wer done in this direction. Materitls and Me thods The exp eriment was conducted in the exp erimental area and p lant laboratory of Iraq Natural Hist ory Research Centre & M useum, Baghdad University , Bab-Almuadham campus, Baghd ad. Forty (one-year old) equally length seedling of Casuarina equisetifolia wer e p lanted in the field on 5 th of M arch 2005 in three rows with a distances of one by one meter in clay soil. Planting p rocess was done in the way that the roots of p lants had an equal depth from ground surface t o assure regularity of treatments. The seedlin gs were left to grow normally in the field till 4 th of December 2005. Then twenty equally length seedlin gs wer e selected to be the units of the exp eriment . Five levels of crude oil (Basra light crude oil) used ((L0) 0.0, (L1) 0.5, (L2) 1.0, (L3) 2.0 and (L4) 3.0) liter / seedling were added to the soil surface surroundin g the p lant within a cir cle of 30 cm diameter. The exp eriment was conducted by using comp lete rando mized desi gn (C.R.D), t he treatments were rep licated four times. On t he end of December 2007 the exp eriment was ended by cutt ing the p lants and the effects of crude oil p ollution on wood fiber len gth, diameter, wall thickn ess and sp ecific gravity of Casuarina equisetifolia were evaluated . Three (1 inch) discs were p repared by cross cutting the stem from lower , middle, and up p er p art. Each disc was divided rad ially into two equal p arts to assure obtaining of external and internal wood sp ecimens accordin g to their distance from the p ith. Small three samples were p repared from each p osition for testing sp ecific gr avity and three others for maceration, these last three were further divided in to small st icks , mixed and a sufficient amount was taken for maceration . Fibers were macer ated by glacial acetic acid and hy drogen p eroxide . Plants of L4 i.e. 3.o liter / p lant could not survive to t he end of exp eriment ,hence they were excluded. M easurements of fiber dimensions were app lied on 20 elements for each r eplicate, i.e. mean valu e of each level of treatments was rep resented by 80 measurements . The results obtained were analy zed by using [9]. Results and Discussion Fiber dimensions resp onded differently to the level of p ollution and to sp ecimen p osition factors and their interaction. Fiber diameter seemed to be the most affected one while wall thickness had no resp onse neither to p ollution nor to the p osition of the sp ecimen (Table 1).Sp ecific gravity was affected by the p ollution factor and its interaction with sp ecimen p osition. IBN AL- HAITHAM J. FO R PURE & APPL. SC I. VO L.24 (1 ) 2011 Fiber len gth of wood lay ers near the bark was much higher than that of lay ers near the pith (Table 2).The increment was about 18%.The same trend of effect was observed with fiber diameter but lesser than occurred with the fiber len gth. Similar r esults were obtained with other tree sp ecies [10]. Literature assured such trend of increment esp ecially in juvenile wood [11 , 12]. The effect of p ollution on fiber len gth was not obvious on internal wood, while in case of external wood short er fibers (e xcept L3) were obtained with high er pollution levels. Also, fibers were narrower with increasin g p ollution regardless to wood p osition i.e. the decrement in diameter wsa not limited to the external wood as happ ened with fiber length. External wood showed thicker fiber than internal one. These values of di ameter seems to be not much high er than mentioned in some ot her literatures, [13], that might be due to t he v ariation in growt h conditions. Wall thickness had no si gnificant changes by chan ging lev els of p ollution or wood p osition, that means the increase or decr ease in f iber diameter happ ened mainly in cell lumen affecting wood specific gravity . Results of sp ecific gr avity reveal to some interest observations which interp ret the significance interaction app eared in table (1). Pollution level had no clear influence on the internal wood sp ecific gr avity (Table 3), while very clear effect cou ld be observ ed on sp ecific gravity of external wood. It was increased with the increase of levels of p ollution, esp ecially at t he most two higher lev els. It means that a high er density was obt ained in the wood formed after p ollution due to the forming of narrower fibers having the same wall thickn ess. Herein too, an interest observation was found that the values of sp ecific gravity were at their minimu m levels mentioned by literatures dealt with wood of this tree sp ecies [2 , 14]. Growth conditions and the size of trees could be the reason of obtaining lower density wood. Some conclusions from the obtained results could be p ointed; crude oil p ollution has effects on some wood p rop erties . It makes fibers of Casuarina equise tifolia short er and narrower. Such findings could be exp lained according to obtaining h igher sp ecific gravity of wood for t he outer lay ers that were added after pollution process. Re ferences 1-Watson, L., and Dallwitz , M .J. (1992). The families of flowering p lants: descrip tions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 9th Sep tember, 2008. 2-USDA Forest Service (1996 ), Wood Technical Fa ct Sheet- Casuarina spp ..Forest Prod. Lab. WI 53705 – 2398 . 3- Boland, D.J., Brooker, M .I.H., Chipp endale, G.M ., Hall, N., Hy land, B.P.M ., Johnston, R.D., Kleinig, D.A.,and Turner, J.D., (1984). "Forest Casuarinas,(CSIRO/Ne lson:M elbourne). Trees of Australia Taxonomy. 4-Duke, A. James (1983). Handbook of Energy Crop s. Unp ublished. Quot . www. Hort .p urdue.edu/newcrop /duke-ener gy /dukeindex.html 5-Larissa Harris,( 2008 ) Exotic Sp ecies in Florida, Australian Pine. Report for "Issues in Ecology and Environment in Florida" http://www.floridaplants.com/casuarin a_equisetifolia.htm 6-Udo,E.J. and Fey emi, A.A.A. (1975). Effect of oil pollution of soil on germination, growt h and nutrient upt ake of corn. J. Env. Qual.4: 537-540. 7 - Dejong, E. (1980). The effect of a crude oil sp ill on cereals. Environ. poll. 22: 187-196 . 8-Ali, H. H. Abd Ali, B. A. (2008). Effects of crude oil on the growt h of Casuarina equisetifolia. Scientific Journal of Kerbala University . 6 (4):110-116. 9- Statist ica for windows "99 Edition" , 1999 , Kernel release 5.5 A StatSoft, Inc. IBN AL- HAITHAM J. FO R PURE & APPL. SC I. VO L.24 (1 ) 2011 10-Abd Ali B. A. Ali , H. H., Nasir, F. R. and Ahmed, N. A. (2009). Study of fiber Dimensions and sp ecific gravity of Leucaena leuecocephala growin g in the middle of Iraq. M esop otamia Journal of A gricu lture ,. 37 (2) :185-189. 11-Taylor, F. W. (1976). Fiber length variation within growt h rings of certain angiosp erms. Wood and Fiber Science, 8 (2): 116- 119. 12-Stergios Adamop oulos & Elias Voulgaridis, (2002). Within – tree variation in growt h rate and cell dimensions in the wood of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) IAWA Journal, Vol. 23 (2), 2002: 191–199. 13-M ahmood, A. (1993). Suitability of Casuarina equisetifolia wood for p ulp p roduction and p ap er indust ry in Pakist an. Pak. J. Bot., 25(2): 179-182, 1993. 14-Hawaii Forest Indust ry Association (1989). Description of Hawaii s woods.www.study sp here.com/…/Forest ry -Forestry Association- 4649.html. Tabl e (1) An alysis of varian ce of fi be r dimension s an d spe ci fi c gravity of the woo d of C. equisetifolia Interaction LV x SP Sp ecimen Position ( SP ) Level of Pol lution ( LV ) Wood Prop erty M ean Squares df M ean Squares df M ean Squares df 18.74 3 1254.26 * 1 15.24 3 Fiber Length 13.88 * 3 13.20 * 1 11.47 * 3 Fiber Diameter 0.125 3 0.093 1 0.092 3 Wall Thickn ess 0.0049 * 3 0.0015 1 0.0036 * 3 Sp ecific Gravity Means with (* )are sign ificantly difference ( LS D) at p< 0. 05 Tabl e (2) Me an values of wood fi be r dimension s of C. equisetifolia as affe cte d by cru de oil pollu tion an d posi ti on wi thin the stem. Wall Thickn ess ( μ m) Fiber Diameter ( μ m ) Fiber Length (mm) Level of Pollution External Internal External Internal External Internal 2.54 2.93 22.0 24.6 0.983 0.803 L0 2.93 2.67 24.1 19.4 0.972 0.817 L1 2.43 2.70 22.3 20.1 0.909 0.813 L2 2.80 2.90 20.8 19.2 0.949 0.803 L3 2.68 2.80 22.3 20.8 0.953 0.809 M ean Tabl e (3) Effe ct of level s of cru de oi l pollu tion and spe cimen position on the s pe cifi c gravi ty of C. equisetifolia wood. M ean Sp ecific Gravity Level of Pol lution External wood Internal wood 0.522 0.514 0.529 L0 0.511 0.503 0.519 L1 0.528 0.538 0.518 L2 0.545 0.570 0.520 L3 0.527 0.531 0.522 M ean قیة المجلد للعلوم الصرفة والتطبی 2011) 1( 24مجلة ابن الھیثم Casuarina equisetifoliaتأثیر تلوث التربة بالنفط في بعض صفات خشب حسن حسین علي, يباسم عباس عبد عل جامعة بغداد ،ف التاریخ الطبیعيمركز بحوث ومتح 2010،كانون الثاني ،24استلم البحث في 2010، نیسان،25قبل البحث في الخالصة Casuarina أجریت التجربة لبحث تأثیـر تلوث التربـة بالنفط الخـام في بعض صفـات الخشـب لنبـات equisetifolia .ث تلو ر . شتلة بعمر سنة واحدة 40على استخدمت أربعة مستویات من ال أخذت النماذج عند قطع األشجا ب . بعد موسمي نمو من تأریخ التلوث تمت دراسة أطوال األلیاف وأقطارھا وسماكات جدرانھا والوزن النوعي للخش داخلي والخارجي د قطر اللیف بصورة اكبر مما حصل مع طول اللیف، فيأظھرت النتائج تأثیرا عكسیا للتلوث . ال ولم تب ر تأثرا معنویا بھذا العامل داخلي و. سماكة الجدا اظھرت أبعاد األلیاف للخشب الخارجي اكبر من نظیراتھا للخشب ال السیم زن . لصفة طول اللیف تأثر الوزن النوعي للخشب بعامل التلوث متداخال مع العامل اآلخر فقد ظھرت زیادة ملحوظة للو ظھر بعض . خشب الخارجي دون الداخلي أي للحلقتین اللتین تكونتا بعد عملیة التلوثالنوعي مع ارتفاع مستوى التلوث لل ى ىالتباین في قیم أبعاد األلیاف والوزن النوعي عما ورد في دراسات أجریت على النوع في مناطق أخر قد یعود سببھ إل .اختالف الظروف البیئیة للنمو بین المواقع