STUDY ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BASIC DENSITY WITH AGE OF Gigantochloa scortechinii IN JELI, KELANTAN

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant and categorized under grass family. The usage of bamboo as fundamental materials to replace the timber is crucial and need for furthering research especially in the necessary age for utilization purposes. This research scope is regarding the Gigantochloa scortechinii bamboo age and it's relationship with physical properties such as moisture content (MC), basic density (BD), shrinkage and swelling (SS). The physical properties factor are important to be determined because they will influence the strength and durability properties of the bamboo to be used as timber replacement. The results showed that MC is inverse proportional with bamboo age. BD is direct proportional with the bamboo age. While SS shows the increase from 1 to 2 years-old, decrease from 3 to 4 years-old but increase during 5 years-old. This research shown that the 3 to 4 years-old age of the Gigantochloa scortechinii is necessary for multipurpose utilization. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) both for bamboo age and internode proportion showed that there was significant differences among the physical properties.
Key words: Gigantochloa scortechinii, Physical properties, bamboo age.