Abstract

The color variance of dry coconut wood and its relationship with the wood density was explored. Coconut trunks with two different ages of 30 and 60 years old were selected for the experiment. Wood color was measured by the CIE L*a*b* or CIELAB color system on both the transverse (longitudinal-tangential plane) and cross (tangential-radial plane) sections. The results showed that all color parameters (L*, a*, b*) tended to decrease with increasing wood density for both sections in which the value on transverse section was slightly higher. At a given density, the color value of the older trunk was lower. All color parameters appeared to be related with density in a linear relationship with relatively low R² for both ages. The best correlation was observed for the b*-density relationship on cross sectional samples for both trunk ages, showing R² values of 0.53 to 0.60. This implies that it might be possible to use this color parameter as input for the grading of coconut wood’s density.