Pulpwood
It is a versatile natural resource commonly used for paper-making but also made into low-grade wood and used for chips, energy, pellets, and engineered products.
Categorizing trees into hardwood and softwood is the easiest way to characterize types of paper produced from pulpwood.
It has small dimensions in its fibres, which can be useful for small-scale uniformity, opacity, and surface smoothness, all important for printing paper.
[2] Softwoods are the preferred raw material for strong papers, due to the length and slimness of the fibres.
Low-density softwoods, such as firs with thin-walled fibres are preferred for papers with high demands for bonding-related strength characteristics.
[3] Hardwood has anatomical structural differences to softwood, which influences physical properties, durability, workability, and bonding.
The use of solid hardwoods has decreased during the last couple centuries, most likely due to the development of wood-based materials that allow for larger constructions not limited to the size of trees.
Low-quality stands are completely harvested for pulpwood to regenerate the forest to more desirable species, as well as larger trees with disease or defects that prevent their use for lumber.
Most parts of furniture such as table boards, shelves or cabinet doors belong to wood-based materials because of their glued components.
Solid wood can be used for chairs, tables, beds, upholstery frames, sideboards, cabinets, bathtubs, and more.
Typical tree species used for solid wood materials include beech, oak, birch, alder and chestnut.
An important characteristic that softwoods have that make them a suitable pulpwood to build with, is that they can easily absorb any kind of finish.
Its insect-repellent properties make cedar-wood ideal for the manufacturing of internal furniture, such as chests, boxes, and closets.
Western Red Cedar is used to make musical instruments such as guitars and violins, due to its colour and resistance to warping and cracking.
Some include furniture, doors, windows, and larger-scale items such as bridge parts, log homes, and commercial buildings.
It is another type of wood used to build decks, because of its natural strength, stability, and lifespan (can last a long time).
[9] The chemicals used are: 1) sulfite salts with an excess of sulfur dioxide and 2) caustic soda and sodium sulfide (kraft process).
Softwood species are preferred to make wood pellets due to the resin content required to bind the particles together.
Poor quality trees are put to better use and burned as a crude energy source as heat, light and cooking fuels.
[1] Coppicing refers to the ancient and traditional woodland management technique that involves cutting trees at their base and creating a stool for new shoots to grow.
The ash created during the pyrolysis process contains nutrients that are used as plant fertilizer, but it could also contain contaminants from the soils of the trees origin site.
[13] Some of the potential sources of wood-fuel include early thinnings from commercial plantations, the residues from timber harvesting and arboricultural activities, coppicing and sawmills.
To help feed pulp and paper mills, vast monocultures of conifers eucalyptus, acacia, and other species are being established both in the North and South, where fast tree growth, inexpensive land and labour, and lavish subsidies combine to make wood cheaper.
As exotic trees invade native woodlands, grasslands, farmlands and pastures, consequences in most countries include impoverishment, environmental degradation, and rural strife.
A forest is a complex, self-regenerating system, consisting of soil, water, microclimates, energy, a diverse ecosystem with a wide variety of plants and animals in mutual relation.
In contrast, a commercial plantation is a cultivated area whose species and structure have been simplified dramatically to produce only a few goods, such as lumber, fuel, resin, oil or fruit.
The trees in a plantation have a small range of species and ages, and require extensive and consistent human intervention.
Since they are used for commercial necessities, they are established on healthy soil, with their objective being short cycles of rapid growth that requires a certain level of fertility and water supply.
[17] Salvage cutting is the removal of trees that have been killed or damaged by insects, disease, wind, ice, snow, volcanic activity, or wildfire.
Post-fire salvage cutting helps manage fuels and future fire behaviour, as long as logging slash is treated after the harvest.
