So just following up the brief post I added on the
@Northern monkey thread yesterday, I thought I'd share some photos of another Wide Grain cleft I've got. All trees grow in the same way of course, but when the growth is so rapid (25mm per year or so), it makes it very easy to see how the growth builds and changes through the year.
Here's 3 photos of the same cleft, a 4 grainer. Growth is from Right to Left. As we all know, each grain indicates the period of dormancy during the winter months. Sap is low, the leaves have fallen, photosynthesis is not taking place, water is not being drawn up the trunk, growth is stopped. Then the spring arrives, the tree 'wakes up' and a period of intense growth takes place. As you can see, the tree bulks up with water so rapidly that the fibres of the wood are widely spaced. As summer arrives, there is less water available to draw up. The growth gradually slows and through the rest of the year the density of the fibres increases.
So, what then does this tell us about wide and narrow grain clefts? Clearly, there is a lot more water in WG timber, and less wood fibre. So it follows that when we dry these clefts out the weight is likely to be less than NG clefts. This is reflected in the current experiment, as Northern Monkey's careful notes demonstrate. But might this high growth also help explain the performance and longevity of WG bats? As we see, there are significant areas of lower density wood, which might be more 'springy and pingy', but may also be more likely to break up under the pressure of a hard ball.
Hopefully we can try to answer some of these questions when the 2 bats are ready to play. Come on Northern, have at it!
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Topic: Narrow Grain vs Wide Grain - Amateur Science (Read 27525 times)