Success in using near infrared spectroscopy to estimate wood properties of Pinus taeda radial strips not due to autocorrelation

Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy provides a rapid method for estimating several important wood properties of 10mm sections of radial wooden strips. Successful calibrations have been obtained with NIR spectra collected from 3 to 16 consecutive 10 rum sections of the same wood core. The success of these calibrations might be due to an autocorrelation that exists between the adjacent sections of a core. In this study, we compared calibrations with spectra collected from consecutive 10mm sections to calibrations obtained with spectra collected from unrelated 10mm sections. Very similar calibration statistics were obtained with both sets of spectra, demonstrating that existing calibration success is not due to an autocorrelation.