Effects of climate change on wood formation and propeties

Background and Objective

New approaches and new innovations are needed to strengthen the Central European bio-based industry competition in the context of the climate change impact.

An important strategy is the study of the potential of more adapted and lesser known wood species (LUWS).

Furthermore, it will be evaluated how the expected changes will affect wood formation processes and wood properties. These complex interrelationships will also be considered in context to industrial wood utilization, including the development of new assortments and products.

Target Group

European Forestry, European Timber Industry, Forestry and Wood Science 

Approach

In order to describe the changes of wood formation and properties precisely and from various perspectives, the following research approaches and objectives are applied:

a) advanced wood anatomy optical and electron microscopy techniques to investigate the macro-, micro- and ultrastructural features like cell wall-structure,

b) analysing of the cell-wall components including lignin and various phenolic compounds such as heartwood components using High-Performance-Liquid-Chromatography (HPLC), Gas Chromatography (GC), UV-micro-spectro-photometry (UMSP) techniques,

c) determination of physical and mechanical properties of wood by means of novel, sophisticated and not yet standardized techniques such as e.g. digital image correlation (DIC).

The listed studies to characterize the wood structure and wood properties of "lesser known species" are carried out in cooperation with the Mendel University Brno, the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden.

Our Research Questions

Research questions and demands:

• Influence of changed climate and forest growth conditions on structural and chemical wood properties;
• Establishment of a property catalogue (physical, mechanical, chemical, biological) of selected leaser known species
• Processability of wood from lesser known species;
• Evaluation of new industrial applications for additional or changed wood species, assortments, qualities, quantities.