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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2011

2010

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Abstract

Ambitious targets for renewable energy production in Norway draw attention to biomass potent-ials. The objective of this report is to review the state of the art regarding research on estimation methods, the availability and production of tree biomass resources for energy purposes in Norway in order to indentify knowledge gaps and thus facilitate appropriate focus, development and priorities regarding research for the coming years. The review focuses on biomass from pri-mary forest production with emphasis on Norwegian conditions, but also considers international research, especially from the other Nordic countries. Three main subject areas are considered: - biomass estimation - biomass resources and availability - biomass production. The first part of this report comprises an overview of existing biomass equations and associated inventory methods applied for estimating biomass in Norway. The overview includes a description of the Norwegian National Forest Inventory data as a basis for large-scale biomass assessments. The second part of the report comprises an overview of previous Norwegian assessments of biomass as an energy supplier as well as suggestions for improvements in such assessments. Improvement possibilities regarding the impacts of environmentally oriented restrictions, appropriate models for productivity and cost calculations regarding biomass harvesting systems, and implementation of biomass-related features in existing decisions support systems to facilitate analyses, where timber production and biomass production for energy purposes are equally important, are identified. The final part of the review focuses on silvi-cultural options aiming at optimizing the value of total biomass instead of the conventional approach to silviculture where the main focus is timber values.

Abstract

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) sapwood is per definition (EN-350-2) easy to treat. Combination with its good availability on the European markets, it is a construction and building material in demand. However, partially large differences in penetration are reported from industry and research. To keep a reliable product quality, impregnation processes aligned to the material most difficult to treat. Hence, it is crucial to know about the factors inhibiting the fluid flow into the material. Scots pine samples from a wide geographic distribution, 25 different sites in 6 different countries, have been collected and impregnated with an aqueous monomer furfuryl alcohol solution. From each of the respective sites logs of 1.3 meter in length were collected from nine trees belonging to three different breast height diameter classes. Three trees from each dominance class were chosen randomly. The log was drawn from the felled stem in a height of 1.2 meters with exact marked north/south exposition. Sapwood slabs orientated in the heaven directions, underwent a drying procedure at 40°C for 48 h and small clear samples of 20 x 20 x 50 mm were prepared. A large variation of the ratio of filling was found for the material tested. Diameter as well as sample origin seem to influence the materials permeability.

Abstract

Wood protection is mainly based on chemical protection of wood. The disposal of wood preservative treated material causes restrictions in its later use or recirculation into the eco-cycle. A new protective system, electro-osmotic pulsing technology on wood, called PLEOT, is tested in a fungi test and in soil contact. Mass loss and moisture content of Scots pine sapwood samples was calculated after testing and an element analysis was performed on the sample powder. The results show that PLEOT- protected samples have nearly no mass loss after 4, 8 and 12 weeks of exposure to Coniophora puteana in laboratory trials. The samples protected with PLEOT showed lower moisture content but trace elements of metals in the samples after basidiomycete test compared to untreated samples. It is concluded, that neither the resulted wood moisture content nor the transferred metal ions in the PLEOT samples contribute to large amounts to the wood protection effect. Furthermore, the PLEOT system might give a protection for wood in soil contact. Further research on the mode of action as well as further tests including field tests are under planning.

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Abstract

Seedlings of open pollinated Picea abies families from Norwegian and Central European parent trees standing at three sites in Norway were tested for timing of bud set at the end of the first growth season together with seedlings from control provenances producing seeds at their geographical origin. The parental origins were confirmed with a maternally inherited mitochondrial marker that distinguishes trees of the Northern European range from those of the Central European range. The seedlings from the families of Central European mother trees producing seeds in Norway had on average a bud set more similar to the families of local Norwegian origin producing seeds at the same site than the provenance of the same Central European origin. It is argued that the rapid change in this adaptive trait from one generation to the next can be explained by recent research results demonstrating that day length and temperature conditions during embryo formation and maturation can influence the phenotypic performance of seedlings in Norway spruce. This effect may influence the fitness of naturally regenerated plants produced in plantations of Central European trees in Norway.

Abstract

The semi-individual tree crown approach (semi-ITC) was used to predict crown base heights (CBH) on the level of single crown segments based on airborne laser scanning (ALS) derived metrics. The root-mean-squared-differences (RMSD) on the segment level were smallest for spruce. However, they were larger than the standard deviation of the measured CBH for pine and birch. The RMSD values were also larger compared to other studies. This can in part be explained by the fact that the semi-ITC approach incorporates errors of the segmentation algorithm. As a consequence, all instead of only correctly identified trees were considered in modeling which results in more realistic RMSD values. After aggregating the individual segment predictions to the plot level, the RMSD values were smaller than the standard deviations of the field measurements and comparable to other studies. The relative RMSD values for birch, spruce, pine and all species were 51.61, 35.22, 49.28, and 13.89%, respectively.