Treesearch

The use of social media as a marketing tool has increased significantly in recent years. However, limited information is available regarding social media use in the US forest products industry or social media adoption at the organizational level, especially within the business-to-business context. This study presents part two of a two-part series of articles that look at the forest products industry in the digital age. A mail survey was conducted in 2013 to examine factors affecting the use of social media in the US forest products industry. This article also looks at the perception of...

One of the fundamental skills needed for hazard tree assessment is the evaluation of decay. This may be a difficult task as we usually only use external symptoms (wounds, basal swellings, decayed branch stubs), signs (mushrooms, fungal crusts or brackets) or mechanical/indirect sampling methods (drilling, electrical or sonic resistance) to estimate the amount of sound versus decayed wood. The ability to identify fruiting bodies of wood decay fungi can give the assessor additional information on the type and extent of decay in the tree. For example, the presence of a single fruiting body of...

Seeds of native plants are needed for rangeland restoration in the Intermountain West. Many of these plants are rarely cultivated and relatively little is known about the cultural practices required for their seed production. Irrigation trials were conducted for five perennial Lomatium species over multiple years. Lomatium species grown at the Oregon State University Malheur Experiment Station, Ontario, OR received 0, 100, or 200mmof irrigation per year. Seed yield responses to irrigation were evaluated by linear and quadratic regression. In general, seed yields from the three species...

This report describes the current state and near-term perspective of the U.S. economy supported by general and statistical information on forest products markets in terms of production, trade, consumption, and prices. Market developments are described for sawn softwood, sawn hardwood, softwood log trade, wood-base panels, paper and paperboard, fuelwood, forest products prices, and housing starts. Policy initiatives that can affect domestic markets and international trade in wood products are also discussed in some detail. Data are provided through the end of the year 2014 with estimates...

Ipê is an extremely difficult species to bond because of its high density, interlocking grain, and high volumetric swelling–shrinkage under prolonged wet conditions. Despite its difficulties, the wood is known to be extremely durable in exterior conditions because of its resistance to microbial and insect degradation. Therefore, investigating its bondability with exterior wood adhesives will broaden its use in applications in which fasteners are not feasible. In this study, ipê wood was bonded with five ambient-curing exterior-grade wood adhesives (epoxy, emulsion polymer isocyanate, two...

Glued laminated timber Tudor arches have been in wide use in the United States since the 1930s, but detailed knowledge related to seismic design in modern U.S. building codes is lacking. FEMA P-695 (P-695) is a methodology to determine seismic performance factors for a seismic force resisting system. A limited P-695 study for glued laminated timber arch structures highlighted the lack of lateral load testing; therefore, critical modelling information was not available and assumptions based on available research were used. In this study, full-scale lateral load testing of the glued laminated...

Here we demonstrate potentially low cost and green productions of high thermally stable and carboxylated cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and nanofibrils (CNF) from bleached eucalyptus pulp (BEP) and unbleached mixed hardwood kraft pulp (UMHP) fibers using highly recyclable dicarboxylic solid acids. Typical operating conditions were acid concentrations of 50 - 70 wt% at 100 °C for 60 min and 120 °C (no boiling at atmospheric pressure) for 120 min, for BEP and UMHP, respectively. The resultant CNCs have a higher thermal degradation temperature than their corresponding feed fibers and carboxylic...

Refugia have long been studied from paleontological and biogeographical perspectives to understand how populations persisted during past periods of unfavorable climate. Recently, researchers have applied the idea to contemporary landscapes to identify climate change refugia, here defined as areas relatively buffered from contemporary climate change over time that enable persistence of valued physical, ecological, and socio-cultural resources. We differentiate historical and contemporary views, and characterize physical and ecological processes that create and maintain climate change...

Variation in Earth’s climate system has always been a primary driver of ecosystem processes and biological evolution. In recent decades, however, the prospect of anthropogenically driven change to the climate system has become an increasingly dominant concern for scientists and conservation biologists. Understanding how ecosystems may adapt to rapid contemporary and future change benefits from our knowledge of how they have responded to natural climatic variation across prehistoric time, especially during periods when Earth system conditions and ecosystems correspond to those of the modern...

The egg parasitoid Oobius agrili Zhang and Huang (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is one of four parasitoid species from northeast Asia being released in regions of North America as part of a biological control program to manage the invasive emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) (Bauer et al. 2015). To date, O. agrili has been released in 23 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. At Michigan study sites where O. agrili was released starting in 2007, average egg parasitism reached up to 40% over a five-year period (Abell et al. 2014).