Conditions for the development of wood‐property‐based scaling routines for pulp wood inferred from selected investigations of Swedish pulp wood

Abstract

Data concerning the variation in dry matter content and basic density were selected from existing investigations of Swedish pulp wood. For Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), a large variation in basic density was found between logs belonging to the same pile, whereas the variation between pile means was less (12–43 kg m‐3 between piles compared with 31–52 kg m‐3 within pile). The large within‐pile variation leads to two conclusions. Firstly, routines for pile‐level scaling and sorting of pulp wood according to basic density should be based on fast rather than very precise methods because the validity of the estimated pile mean value depends more on the number of measurements per pile than on the precision of each measurement. Secondly, pile‐level sorting of pulp wood according to pile mean basic density may not in all cases give more homogeneous portions of raw material.