Recent advances in protection of unseasoned radiata pine wood in New Zealand

Radiata Fine logs exported from New Zealand are susceptible to mould, sapst ain and decay. Protection of logs from fungal degrade has not been achieved using conventional antisapstain treatments. A novel antisapstain treatment called Sentry(R) meets the efficacy requirements of industry by overcoming some underlying difficulties of treating logs by delivering a deep envelop e of treated wood that remains intact for the duration of the protection pe riod sought, and by arresting inevitable fungal infection that occurs durin g commercial log handling regimes. Sentry is a solubilised concentrate cont aining methylenebisthiocyanate (MBT) and 2-n-octyl-4-isothiazolin-3-one (OI A). Log mill trials compared the performance of Sentry with a commercial st andard on logs of ages 1-14 days from felling. For log ages of 0, 2, 4, and 7 days, mean percentage sapstain for Sentry (equivalent to 0.5% w/v MBT pl us 0.125% w/v OIA) was 0. 9, 21, and 32, respectively, compared to 3, 31, 5 4, and 54 for the commercial standard. The ability of Sentry to protect old er logs is of considerable value to forestry operations because rapid extra ction is often not feasible or increases costs. For block-stacked radiata p ine boards stored for 12 weeks, Sentry. at the lowest concentration tested (equivalent to 0.125% MBT plus 0.025% OIA), gave equivalent protection to t he highest concentrations of all the commercial standards. (C) 2000 Publish ed by Elsevier Science Ltd.