Opportunities for Adding Value to Plantation Grown Eucalyptus Logs
In recent years a great many plantations of Australian eucalypts have been established around the world as forest growers have sought to capitalise on their excellent growth and adaptability characteristics. The prime driver for this investment has been the ever increasing demand for paper/pulp and as a consequence the focus has tended to be on the shortest possible crop rotation and species providing the best pulp yields. However, as the availability of native forest hardwood sawlogs is declining, in both quantity and quality, relative to increasing demand, more growers and processors are looking to the practicalities of using plantation grown trees to service traditional sawn wood applications. It is clear that growing and processing eucalypt timber for this purpose presents a number of significant issues in relation to both growing suitable trees and in processing them to produce high value products at costs competitive with traditional supplies. Logs from juvenile eucalypt trees have largely proved to be unsuitable for conventional sawing and drying. This paper addresses these problems and presents outputs of twenty years of research work by experienced Australian forest industry consultants. It focuses on the issues associated with harvesting and processing juvenile eucalypt trees into high value sawn wood products from plantation to market. It addresses the basic issues of the qualities of the resource, inherent processing difficulties and what markets might best be served. Innovative processes and technology have been applied to these fundamental issues to facilitate the production of quality products suitable for world maxkets at realistic costs. To demonstrate the processes, high quality laminated flooring from six and eight year-old Eucalyptus globulus thinnings, has been produced and tested by Valuwood International. These processes open up new options to forest growers seeking to improve their return on investment in eucalypt plantations by being able to produce a range of products from short rotation plantations without detracting significantly from productive capacity for pulp production. They also provide the opportunity for wood processors to gain access to a much larger resource base from which to produce products. Quality products can be made from juvenile eucalyptus timber if manufacturers have the foresight to invest in the right processes and technology to address the inherent wood characteristics.
Phil Shedley Kevin Bentley
Valuwood International Pty Ltd., Australia
国际会议
The International Conference on Plantation Eucalyptus(桉树国际会议)
广东湛江
英文
142-150
2005-12-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）