Contract 8CA74759 Opinions or conclusions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Editorial comments may be addressed to the FRRAP staff chief or to the author. Executive Summary Perceptions of wood fiber merchantability are based on existing patterns of utilization. These patterns ar...

Wood liquefaction using an organic solvent and an acid catalyst has long been studied as a novel technique to utilize biomass as an alternative to petroleum-based products. Oxalic acid is a weaker organic acid than a mineral acid and wood liquefaction with oxalic acid as a catalyst will result in a higher amount of wood residue than that with a mineral acid. Yet the wood residue can be used as ...

Surveys of wood along 30 forested headwater stream reaches in La Selva Biological Station in north-eastern Costa Rica represent the first systematic data reported on wood loads in neotropical streams. For streams with drainage areas of 0·1–8·5 km and gradients of 0·2–8%, wood load ranged from 3 to 34·7 m wood/100 m channel and 41–612 m wood/ha channel. These values are within the range reported...

Thirty-six species o f wood-inhabiting microfungi have been assayed for cellulase, xylanase, mannanase and amylase activity by the use o f different test methods. The wood-degrading capabilities of the test organisms were previously known. Three o f the species were unable t o degrade birch wood. The other species represented three different degradation patterns, viz. I ) formation of soft rot ...

Wood as a natural renewable material is vulnerable to degradation by microorganisms and susceptible to change in dimension by water. In order to effectively improve the durability of wood, an active reagent, maleic anhydride (Man) was selected for wood modification. Man was first dissolved into a solvent, and then penetrated into wood porous structure under a vacuum/pressure condition. After a ...

Wood formation in trees requires carbon import from the photosynthetic tissues. In several tree species, including Populus species, the majority of this carbon is derived from sucrose (Suc) transported in the phloem. The mechanism of radial Suc transport from phloem to developing wood is not well understood. We investigated the role of active Suc transport during secondary cell wall formation i...

X-rays were initially used for the inspection of special-purpose wood pieces for quantitative evaluation of wood properties of different species. X-ray densitometry has had its use expanded in dendroclimatology of Picea engelmannii trees. Subsequent laboratories developed applications of X-ray densitometry for environmental, wood science and technology, and related areas. This paper describes t...

The aim of the study was to determine occupational exposure in Croatian wood processing industry and forest workers to harmful effects of wood dust on the risk of nose, nasal cavity and lung carcinoma. Mass concentrations of respirable particles and total wood dust were measured at two wood processing plants, three woodwork shops, and one lumbering site, where 225 total wood dust samples and 22...

This paper reviews associations in literature between exposure to wood dust from fresh wood and non-malignant respiratory diseases. Criteria for inclusion are epidemiological studies in English language journals with an internal or external control group describing relationships between wood dust exposure and respiratory diseases or symptoms. The papers took into account smoking, and when deali...

The carbon flux from woody debris, a crucial uncertainty within global carbon-climate models, is simultaneously affected by climate, site environment and species-based variation in wood quality. In the first global analysis attempting to explicitly tease out the wood quality contribution to decomposition, we found support for our hypothesis that, under a common climate, interspecific difference...