Treesearch

The new Director ST300 provides a means to efficiently assess stands for stiffness and related wood properties based on standing tree acoustic velocily measures, and can be easily integrated with pre-harvest and earlier stand assessments. This provides for effective valuation for forest sale, stumpage purchase, harvest planning, and ranking of progeny or clones in tree breeding programs.

Adhesive bonding takes place when an adhesive undergoes the conversion from liquid to solid. The liquid properties are needed for the adhesive to fully wet the bonding substance, and the solid properties are needed for the strength required for the union of the final product. The mobility of an adhesive depends heavily on its own physical and chemical properties and those of the wood surface upon which it is being applied. To improve the interaction, wood is often resurfaced prior to bonding to provide a smooth surface with minimal extractives and other debris. Scientists question whether...

Inhibiting the growth of mold fungi on cellulose-based building materials may be achievable through the use of azole-based antimycotics. Azoles were variably effective against mold fungi that are frequently found on wood and wood products. Unseasoned southern yellow pine specimens that were dip-treated with varying concentrations of eight azoles were evaluated for their ability to resist mold infestation when challenged with Aspergillus niger, Penicillium chrysogenum, and Trichoderma viride spores. Minimal fungicidal concentrations (MFC90) were determined to be 0.016% for thiabendazole and...

This study proposes a deinking selectivity concept that considers both ink removal and fiber yield in determining the performance of deinking operations. The defined deinking selectivity. or Z -factor, is expressed by the ratio of ink removal expressed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) brightness gain or the reduction in relative effective residual ink concentration (ERIC) and the relative fiber (oven-dry basis) rejection loss. For most flotation processes, typical brightness Z -factor is on the order of unit value and ERIC Z -factor is on the order of 10 units. Therefore....

The white rot basidiomycete, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, employs an array of extracellular enzymes to completely degrade the major polymers of wood : cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Towards the identification of participating enzymes, 268 likely secreted proteins were predicted using SignalP and TargetP algorithms. To assess the reliability of secretome predictions and to evaluate the usefulness of the current database, we performed shotgun LC–MS/MS on cultures grown on standard cellulose containing medium. A total of 182 unique peptide sequences were matched to 50 specific genes, of...

Despite the importance of durable wood bonds, the factors that lead to durability are not well understood, and the internal forces exerted upon the bondline are often overlooked. Durability requires that the bonded assembly resist dimensional changes of wood with fluctuation of wood moisture levels. Both bonding and bond breaking steps need to be understood at cellular and nanoscale, in addition to the larger spatial scales normally examined. With both internal and external forces being significant, interphase and bulk adhesive properties need to be better understood. Systematic studies of...

In planning for the Nanotechnology for the Forest products Industry Workshop, we considered many different options for organizing technical focus areas for breakout discussion sessions. We felt the fallowing R&D focus areas provide the best path forward for a nanotechnology roadmap by identifying the underlying science and technology needed: also, they foster essential interactions among visionary, interdisciplinary research and technology leaders from industry, academia, research institutions, and government.

The hardwood chip market gained some stability in the first half of 2004 with a modest upturn in hardwood pulp production and as timber supply emerged from the dampening clouds of unusually wet weather that prevailed throughout the Eastern United States in 2003. Although U.S. pulp production and exports increased in 2004, the hardwood pulp market began to show signs of saturation in the second half of the year, as hardwood market pulp prices peaked around mid-year. Weather also again became an issue in the third quarter with the late summer arrival of hurricane season in the South.

Small-diameter trees growing in overstocked dense stands are often targeted for thinning to reduce fire hazard and improve forest health and ecosystem diversity. In the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain regions, Douglas-fir can be a predominant species in such stands. In this study, mechanical properties and grade yield of structural products were estimated for 2 by 4 lumber cut from logs of small-diameter Douglas-fir trees from a stand in northern California. The results indicate that 70- to 90-year-old suppressed Douglas-fir has excellent potential for the production of all structural...

For general linear models with normally distributed random errors, the probability of a Type II error decreases exponentially as a function of sample size. This potentially rapid decline reemphasizes the importance of performing power calculations.