From 2023-10-10 to 2023-10-10, , online, IUFRO Unit(s) involved: 5.01.00
Resistance drilling of standing trees for the estimation of basic density has been the subject of numerous studies over the last several decades. The measurement of the torque experienced by a small diameter drill bit driven through the wood at constant rpm and forward velocity has been found to provide a robust predictor of wood basic density in many commercial plantation species at a coupe/compartment scale. The development of resistance drilling instrumentation has advanced to the point where it can be used routinely for forestry inventory and tree breeding purposes, providing commercially useful assessment of log and wood quality. To facilitate the commercial uptake of resistance drilling, online data processing platforms have been developed and extensively tested over recent years, to the point they are routinely used by forest growers and tree breeders. These platforms rapidly process thousands of traces, generating wood quality metrics that have been linked to log and sawn product properties. The use of the IML PD series (Resi) instruments combined with the rapid online processing brings the cost of wood quality assessment down to commercially affordable levels for routine inventory applications. This presentation will demonstrate the use of features of the web platform, along with the results of validation studies relating Resi-derived metrics with actual wood density and log stiffness values.