Purpose of Review

Intensive forest management practices are being implemented worldwide to meet future global demand for wood and wood products while facilitating the protection of natural forest ecosystems. A potential decline in wood properties associated with rapid tree growth makes it essential to quantify the potential impact of intensive management on the process of wood formation and, in turn, on its suitability for various end-uses.

Recent Findings

Wood produced over short rotations is generally of lower quality because wood properties tend to improve with cambial age (i.e. the number of annual growth rings from the pith). The intensification of silvicultural practices can thus have measurable consequences for the forest products value chain. The use of new planting material from tree improvement programs could offset such effects, but questions arise as to the effects of a changing climate on wood produced from these plantations and the best silvicultural approaches to manage them.

Summary

Based on these recent findings, we provide reflections on the need for a modelling framework that uses the effects of cambial age, ring width and position along the stem to summarise the effects of tree growth scenarios on wood properties. We then present challenges related to our limited understanding of the effects of several drivers of wood properties, such as climate variation, genetic material, and forest disturbances, among others, and highlight the need for further data collection efforts to better anticipate the quality attributes of the future wood fibre resource. We conclude by providing examples of promising new tools and technologies that will help move wood quality research forward by allowing (1) fast, efficient characterisation of wood properties, and (2) up-scaling predictions at the landscape level to inform forest management decisions.

中文翻译：

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集约化森林经营实践对针叶树木材质量的影响：文献综述和对未来挑战的思考

审查目的

全球正在实施集约化森林管理做法，以满足未来全球对木材和木制品的需求，同时促进对天然森林生态系统的保护。与树木快速生长相关的木材特性可能会下降，因此有必要量化集约化管理对木材形成过程及其对各种最终用途的适用性的潜在影响。

最近的发现

短轮伐期生产的木材通常质量较低，因为木材特性往往会随着形成层年龄（即髓部的年轮数量）而提高。因此，集约化造林实践可以对林产品价值链产生可衡量的影响。使用树木改良计划中的新种植材料可以抵消这种影响，但是气候变化对这些种植园生产的木材的影响以及管理它们的最佳造林方法会产生问题。

概括

基于这些最近的发现，我们反思了对建模框架的需求，该框架利用形成层年龄、年轮宽度和沿茎的位置的影响来总结树木生长情景对木材特性的影响。然后，我们提出了与我们对木材特性的几个驱动因素（例如气候变化、遗传物质和森林干扰等）的影响了解有限相关的挑战，并强调需要进一步收集数据，以更好地预测木材的质量属性未来的木纤维资源。最后，我们提供了一些有前途的新工具和技术的例子，这些工具和技术将通过以下方式帮助推动木材质量研究的发展：（1）快速、有效地表征木材特性，以及（2）在景观层面上扩大预测范围，为森林管理决策提供信息。