The NZDFI was a partner in the Forest Growers Research  Specialty Wood Products Research Partnership (SWP). This seven year (2015-2022) government/industry partnership managed research into specialty species, and NZDFI's wood quality research team was able to make substantial progress thanks to the SWP.

NZDFI wood quality research is led by Associate Professor Clemens Altaner. Full details of on-going wood-quality research can be found in our six-monthly Project Updates.

2023 Reports

• Assessment of  E. globoidea heartwood at Avery (Ghildiyahl and Altaner, SWP-T157)
• Assessment of NZDFI's 206 E. quadrangulata breeding population at NZRC Paparoa (Sharma and Altaner SWP-T156)
• Machinability of 28-year-old Eucalyptus globoidea wood (Scown and Altaner, SWP-T155)

2022 Reports

• Genetic variation in collapse and other wood properties of E. quadrangulata at mid-rotation age (Ghildiyahl and Altaner, SWP-T152)
• Assessment of NZDFI's 2011 E. quadrangulata breeding populations (Sharma and Altaner, SWP-T144)

2021 Reports

• Assessment of E. globoidea heartwood at Ngauma (Sharma and Altaner, SWP-T142)
• Assessment of E. globoidea heartwood at Avery (Ghildiyal and Altaner, SWP-T131)
• Feasibility trials - peeling posts from durable eucalypt logs (Boczniewicz, Millen and Altaner, SWP-T123)
• Assessing heartwood in E. bosistoana cores from NIR hyperimages  (Altaner, SWP-T124)

2020 Reports

• Heartwood in E. bosistoana (Altaner and Sharma 2020)
• Assessment of E. globoidea wood properties at Atkinson (Nguyen et al 2020)
• Value of veneer, wood fibre and posts from improved E. bosistoana (Altaner 2020)
• Wooden posts - a review (Altaner 2020)

2019 

• Minimising growth strain in eucalypts to transform processing (Altaner 2019)
• Heartwood in E. bosistoana (2009 plantings) (Altaner and Sharma 2019)
• Sapwood depth tool - proof of concept (Nursultanov and Heffernan 2019)

2018 

• Heartwood in E. bosistoana (2010 plantings ) (Sharma and Altaner 2018)
• Prediction of E. globoidea heartwood content using NIR spectroscopy (Kuwabara 2018)

2017 

• Quantifying compounds in heartwood extractives of durable eucalypts (Shroettke et al 2017)
• Potential for growing and processing durable eucalypts in New Zealand (Poole et al 2017)
• Performance of naturally durable posts in Marlborough vineyards (Millen and Altaner 2017)
• Modelling growth of Eucalyptus species on NZ dryland micro-sites (Selakin et al 2017)

2016 

• Heartwood formation in young E. bosistoana (Mishra et al 2016)
• Identification of issues and opportunities for LVL from NZ eucalypts (Riley 2016)
• Measuring growth strain by IR spectrocopy (Gue and Altaner 2016)

Growth modelling reports

• Preliminary juvenile height yield models for three durable eucalypts species by integrating site specific factors (Salekin et al 2020)
• Hybrid growth models for E. globoidea and E. bosistoana (Salekin 2019)

Altaner, C. (2015). “Developing a quality eucalypt resource at seedling stage.” Australian Forest Grower 37(4): 33/35.

Altaner, C. and Palmer, H. (2021). “Producing posts and veneer from durable eucalypt timber.” NZ Tree Grower November 2021, 33-37.

Davies, N. T., L. A. Apiolaza and M. Sharma (2017). “Heritability of growth strain in Eucalyptus bosistoana: a Bayesian approach with left-censored data.” New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science 47.

Ghildiyal, V., Herel, R van., Heffernan, B., Altaner, C.M. (2022) “The effect of Joule heating on collapse and water absorption of wood.” Wood material science and engineering, 09/2022.

Ghildiyal, V., Iyiola, E., Sharma, M., Apiolaza, L. A., Altaner, C.M (2023) “Genetic variation in drying collapse and heartwood properties at mid-rotation age of Eucalyptus globoidea.” Industrial crops and products, 10/2023, Volume 201.

Guo, F. and C. M. Altaner (2018). “Properties of rotary peeled veneer and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) from New Zealand grown Eucalyptus globoidea.” New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science 48(1): 3.

Guo, F. and C. M. Altaner (2019). “Measuring Molecular Strain in Rewetted and Never-Dried Eucalypt Wood with Raman Spectroscopy.” Biomacromolecules 20(8): 3191-3199.

Guo, F. and Altaner, C.M. (2019). “Effects of mechanical stretching, desorption and isotope exchange on deuterated eucalypt wood studied by near infrared spectroscopy.”  Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy, 03/2019, Volume 211.

Guo, F., Cramer, M., Altaner, C.M. (2019). “Evaluation of near infrared spectroscopy to non-destructively measure growth strain in trees.” Cellulose (London), 09/2019, Volume 26, Issue 13-14.

Iyiola, E.A., C. M Altaner, L.A. Apiolaza (2022). “Genetic variation in wood properties of mid-rotation Eucalyptus globoidea.” NZ Journal of Forest Science Vol 52 (2022)

Li, Y. and C. Altaner (2018). “Predicting extractives content of Eucalyptus bosistoana F. Muell. Heartwood from stem cores by near infrared spectroscopy.” Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 198: 78-87.

Li, Y., L. A. Apiolaza and C. Altaner (2018). “Genetic variation in heartwood properties and growth traits of Eucalyptus bosistoana.” European Journal of Forest Research 137(4): 565-572.

Li, Y. and C. Altaner (2019). Calibration of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) data of three Eucalyptus species with extractive contents determined by ASE extraction for rapid identification of species and high extractive contents. Holzforschung. 73: 537.

Li, Y. and C. M. Altaner (2019). “Effects of variable selection and processing of NIR and ATR-IR spectra on the prediction of extractive content in Eucalyptus bosistoana heartwood.” Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 213: 111-117.

Li, Y., M. Sharma, C. Altaner and L. J. Cookson (2020). “An approach to quantify natural durability of Eucalyptus bosistoana by near infrared spectroscopy for genetic selection.” Industrial Crops and Products 154: 112676.

Mishra, G., D. A. Collings and C. M. Altaner (2018). “Cell organelles and fluorescence of parenchyma cells in Eucalyptus bosistoana sapwood and heartwood investigated by microscopy.” New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science 48(1): 13.

Mishra, G., D. A. Collings and C. M. Altaner (2018). “Physiological changes during heartwood formation in young Eucalyptus bosistoana trees.” IAWA Journal 39(4): 382-394.

Mishra, G., A. Garrill and C. Altaner (2019). “Bioactivity of ethanol extracts from Eucalyptus bosistoana F. Muell. heartwood.” iForest – Biogeosciences and Forestry 12(5): 467-473.

Rajapaksha, C., P. Greaves, C.M.Altaner (2023) “Economic potential for essential oil production from New Zealand-grown Eucalyptus bosistoana.” Scientific Reports 13, 11/23

Rajapaksha, C., Apiolaza, L.A., Squire, M.A., and Altaner, C.M. (2023) “Seasonal variation of yield and composition in extracts from immature and mature Eucalyptus bosistoana leaves.” Flavour and Fragrance journal, 04/2023.

Rajapaksha, C., Apiolaza, L.A., Squire, M.A., and Altaner, C.M. (2023) “Genetic parameters of esential-oil traits for Eucalyptus bosistoana.” Australian Forestry, 11/23 

The following PhDs have been successfully completed by students associated with the School of Forestry Wood Technology Centre:

Mishra, Gayatri (2018)  "Heartwood formation and the chemical basis of natural durability in Eucalyptus bosistoana." http://hdl.handle.net/10092/16403 http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/2444

Li, Yanjie (2018)  "Use of near infrared spectroscopy to predict wood traits in Eucalyptus species." http://hdl.handle.net/10092/16040 http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/3059

Davies, Nick (2019) "High throughput breeding for wood quality improvement." http://hdl.handle.net/10092/17469
http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/2240

Guo, Fei (2019)"Molecular deformation of wood and cellulose studied by near infrared and Raman spectroscopy." http://hdl.handle.net/10092/16781
http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/8003

Iyola, Ebenezer (2021) "Wood quality of durable eucalypts." https://hdl.handle.net/10092/103482 http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/12583

Rajapaksha, Chamira (2022) "Seasonal, genetic and economic analysis of Eucalyptus bosistoana essential oil." https://hdl.handle.net/10092/104452  http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/13549

Ghildiyal, Vikash  (2023) "Understanding and reducing drying collapse in difficult-to-dry plantation-grown eucalypt timber." https://hdl.handle.net/10092/106770 https://doi.org/10.26021/15212