Abstract

Unpeeled birch and aspen pulpwood logs two metres in length were stored in five places in Sweden in close stacks from May 1963 to Oct. 1965. The micro-flora invading the logs, changes in moisture content, decrease in dry density and the lignin and cellulose content of the wood were followed during storage. Owing to the presence of bark, seasoning of the birch wood was slow, whereas, as a result of barkshedding, the seasoning of aspen wood was faster. The wood decomposition, measured in terms of the decrease in dry density, was greatly influenced by the length of the annual microbial growing season, wood decomposition being two to four times faster in the southern than in the northern part of Sweden. Decay advanced mainly from the end surfaces of a log inwards, indicating that, from the storage point of view, long logs are to be preferred to shorter ones. The decay fungi attacking both types of wood were almost exclusively of the white rot type, resulting in a decomposition of cellulose and lignin which proceeded at the same rate as the total wood decomposition, measured as a decrease in dry density. This indicates that by knowing the decrease in dry density of birch and aspen pulpwood, one has also a crude measure of the loss of cellulose caused by the microorganisms during storage.

Keywords

microbial decomposition; birch; aspen; pulpwood; storage; micro-flora; fungi

Published in

Studia Forestalia Suecica
1967,
Publisher: Skogshögskolan

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/125290