~ 1335 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2019; 7(1): 1335-1337 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 IJCS 2019; 7(1): 1335-1337 © 2019 IJCS Received: 22-11-2018 Accepted: 26-12-2018 Heena Wood Science and Technology, Department of Forest Products, College of Forestry, Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Bhupender Dutt Wood Science and Technology, Department of Forest Products, College of Forestry, Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India KR Sharma Wood Science and Technology, Department of Forest Products, College of Forestry, Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Rajneesh Kumar Wood Science and Technology, Department of Forest Products, College of Forestry, Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Correspondence Heena Wood Science and Technology, Department of Forest Products, College of Forestry, Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Variation in specific gravity of wood of Quercus leucotrichophora A. Camus (Banoak) from different provenances in Himachal Pradesh Heena, Bhupender Dutt, KR Sharma and Rajneesh Kumar Abstract The present study was conducted to determine the specific gravity of wood of Quercus leucotrichophora, procured from the live trees having diameter at breast height (d.b.h) ranged from 25cm to 30cm of different provenances in Himachal Pradesh. Specific gravity of wood is a measure of the amount of structural material a tree species allocates to provide support and strength. It is the most important wood characteristic because its knowledge allows the prediction of greater number of properties than any other trait. In recent years, wood specific gravity has become more important when exploring the universality of functional traits of plants and estimating their global carbon stocks.To estimate the specific gravity, banoak wood samples were collected from a total of 22 provenances in Himachal Pradesh, India. Variation in specific gravity was recorded both in sap wood and heart wood portion of studied banoak trees. The sapwood specific gravity was 7 per cent less than the heartwood specific gravity on average basis and was found to be maximum in Bahadurpur (0.765) whereas lowest was recorded in Jarri (0.629). Highest heartwood specific gravity was observed in Kalapul (0.796) and lowest in Jarri (0.734). Keywords: Specific gravity, strength, sap wood, heart wood Introduction Oaks (Quercus spp.) are the dominant, climax tree species of the moist temperate forests of the Indian Himalayan region where about 35 species of Quercus are extensively distributed between 1000-3500 m elevations (Troup, 1921) [14] . Five species of evergreen oak namely; Quercus glauca, Q. leucotrichophora, Q. dilatata, Q. semecarpifolia and Q. baloot grow naturally in the Western Himalaya which comprises of the eastern part of Himachal Pradesh and state of Uttarakhand. Among these oak species, ban oak forms most extensive forests between 1000 - 2500 m elevations. Their uses includes wood for fuel, acorns for human consumption and leaves for fodder, bark for tannin, wood strips for weaving baskets, charcoal for smelting ore, timbers for ship building, mining timbers, railroad ties, pulpwood for paper, lumber and laminates for furniture, paneling and flooring. The demand for wood products from oaks nevertheless continues to increase and compete with other less tangible values. Oak wood has a density of about 0.75 g/m 3 creating great strength and hardness. The wood is very resistant to insect and fungal attack because of its high tannin content.In hill states of India, besides fuel wood and timber, the local people use oak wood for making agricultural implements. The leaves are used as fodder during lean period and bedding for livestock. Specific gravity of wood is a measure of the amount of structural material a tree species allocates to provide support and strength. It is a most important wood characteristic because its knowledge allows the prediction of greater number of properties than any other trait (Zobel and Talbert, 1984 and Bowyer and Smith, 1998) [17, 1] . Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a material divided by the density of water at 4˚C which is used as a basic to standardized comprehension among species and products. Wood density is not distributed evenly along the stem radius. Variations in wood density are very important for wood industry and can be used to estimate intra-species and inter-species variation of the wood density and indicate variation available for selection in tree improvement programs. Materials and Methodology Procurement of wood samples from field: Wood samples were collected with increment borer from live standing trees of Quercus leucotrichophora from different provenances in