Morphological Characteristics and Chemical Composition of Grapevine Branches (Vitis vinifera spp.) Grown in Astara

This study has been conducted to determine morphological characteristics of fibers and amount of chemical components of grapevine branches cultivated in Astara in province of Guilan. For this purpose the number of 53 branches, with same size and diameter, were cut from some grapevine and sent to laboratory of wood and paper industries in Islamic Azad university Astara branch. To separate the fibers and for studying their morphological characteristics, wooden chip sampling from the branches was conducted at 3 heights of them (5%, 50% and 75%). Fiber separation was done by method (Franklin 1954) and then dimensions of fibers and their biometric coefficients were determined. From a number of separated branches, wood flour was prepared in two modes of with skin and without skin and then, percentage of chemical components of them was determined according to TAPPI standard. The overall average percentage of holocellulose, alpha cellulose, hemi cellulose, cellulose, lignin, acetone extractives, alcohol extractives, hot water extractives, cold water extractives and ash were measured as 87.59, 56.99, 30.59, 47.20, 25.16, 5.90, 2.53, 4.41, 1.79 and 1.79 percent, respectively. Also, the total average of fiber length, fiber diameter, lumen diameter and cell wall thickness were measured as 0.96 mm, 26.45 µm, 15.48 µm and 5.49 µm, respectively. Also, the total average of slenderness, flexibility and runkel coefficients were calculated as 36.29, 58.50 and 0.71, respectively. The results showed that, in the debarked branches of grapevine trees, the amounts of holocellulose, alpha cellulose, hemi cellulose and cellulose are more than with skin branches and debarked branches have less lignin, extractives and ash than with skin branches. Also. The results showed that dimensions of the fibers including fiber length, fiber diameter and fiber lumen diameter, except cell wall thickness, decreased with increasing of height.