TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of Intensive Forest Management Practices on Wood Quality from Conifers
T2 - Literature Review and Reflection on Future Challenges
AU - Barrette, Julie
AU - Achim, Alexis
AU - Auty, David
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was conducted as part of project number 142332173 led by Julie Barrette at the Direction de la Recherche Forestière (ministère des Ressources Naturelles et des Forêts, Québec, Canada) and took part of the network Matériaux Renouvelables Québec. We would like to thank Jean Noël for the production of Fig. 1 as well as two anonymous reviewers for providing insightful suggestions on a previous version of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Crown.
PY - 2023/4
Y1 - 2023/4
N2 - Purpose of Review: Intensive forest management practices are being implemented worldwide to meet future global demand for wood and wood products while facilitating the protection of natural forest ecosystems. A potential decline in wood properties associated with rapid tree growth makes it essential to quantify the potential impact of intensive management on the process of wood formation and, in turn, on its suitability for various end-uses. Recent Findings: Wood produced over short rotations is generally of lower quality because wood properties tend to improve with cambial age (i.e. the number of annual growth rings from the pith). The intensification of silvicultural practices can thus have measurable consequences for the forest products value chain. The use of new planting material from tree improvement programs could offset such effects, but questions arise as to the effects of a changing climate on wood produced from these plantations and the best silvicultural approaches to manage them. Summary: Based on these recent findings, we provide reflections on the need for a modelling framework that uses the effects of cambial age, ring width and position along the stem to summarise the effects of tree growth scenarios on wood properties. We then present challenges related to our limited understanding of the effects of several drivers of wood properties, such as climate variation, genetic material, and forest disturbances, among others, and highlight the need for further data collection efforts to better anticipate the quality attributes of the future wood fibre resource. We conclude by providing examples of promising new tools and technologies that will help move wood quality research forward by allowing (1) fast, efficient characterisation of wood properties, and (2) up-scaling predictions at the landscape level to inform forest management decisions.
AB - Purpose of Review: Intensive forest management practices are being implemented worldwide to meet future global demand for wood and wood products while facilitating the protection of natural forest ecosystems. A potential decline in wood properties associated with rapid tree growth makes it essential to quantify the potential impact of intensive management on the process of wood formation and, in turn, on its suitability for various end-uses. Recent Findings: Wood produced over short rotations is generally of lower quality because wood properties tend to improve with cambial age (i.e. the number of annual growth rings from the pith). The intensification of silvicultural practices can thus have measurable consequences for the forest products value chain. The use of new planting material from tree improvement programs could offset such effects, but questions arise as to the effects of a changing climate on wood produced from these plantations and the best silvicultural approaches to manage them. Summary: Based on these recent findings, we provide reflections on the need for a modelling framework that uses the effects of cambial age, ring width and position along the stem to summarise the effects of tree growth scenarios on wood properties. We then present challenges related to our limited understanding of the effects of several drivers of wood properties, such as climate variation, genetic material, and forest disturbances, among others, and highlight the need for further data collection efforts to better anticipate the quality attributes of the future wood fibre resource. We conclude by providing examples of promising new tools and technologies that will help move wood quality research forward by allowing (1) fast, efficient characterisation of wood properties, and (2) up-scaling predictions at the landscape level to inform forest management decisions.
KW - Conifers
KW - Future challenges
KW - Intensive forest management
KW - Plantation
KW - Silvicultural treatments
KW - Wood quality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149463624&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85149463624&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40725-023-00181-6
DO - 10.1007/s40725-023-00181-6
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85149463624
SN - 2198-6436
VL - 9
SP - 101
EP - 130
JO - Current Forestry Reports
JF - Current Forestry Reports
IS - 2
ER -