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Developing A "Wood Hound"

Researchers Assess Aroma Tagging Technology For Use In Log Tracking

The forestry industry has only dreamed of a way to follow wood from "seedling to rocking chair." Keeping that kind of precise chain-of-custody is difficult for a complex international trade that moves 5 to 15 billion trees from forest to mills annually.

Glen Murphy, a professor of forest engineering in the Oregon State University (OSU) College of Forestry, has suggested a novel solution: applying "aroma tags" to trees when they are initially harvested, and using an electronic nose to track the aroma to the mill, and some day, to the rocking chair.

"As a goal, we want to be able to track wood from the stand, through the supply chain," says Murphy.

While this technology is far from developed, initial "proof of concept" testing conducted by Murphy offers some hope that with improved technology, tracking of wood will become possible.

Aroma tagging works by applying an olfactory fingerprint, or "smellprint," to logs. The smellprint is made up of a combination of artificial odors. Using differing combinations of 25 odors, over 33 million logs could be individually tagged. Then, an electronic device is employed to smell and distinguish the odors, ultimately determining the smellprint given off by a log to reveal its origin.

The industry desire for a wood tracking system is strong, according to Kevin Boston, an assistant professor at OSU who worked as the national supply chain planner for Carter Holt Harvey, the largest timberland owner in New Zealand.

According to Boston, a timber company determines the price it will spend on a forest stand based on an initial estimate of the quality and volume they expect to derive from that supply. If that company could track those logs to the mill they could see if they are actually getting the quality and volume they are paying for. "In forestry the materials are highly variable," says Boston. "Any information that enhances this [process] will add to the competitive advantage of the firm that's able to do that."

Aroma tagging would be particularly beneficial to segments of the forestry industry that produce wood with certain characteristics, such as a desired stiffness or density, for specific markets.

In addition, aroma tagging of logs could allow for certification of "green" forest products, or wood produced in an environmentally sensitive way. Aroma tags could also be used to identify stolen or illegally logged wood, a problem costing governments of timber producing countries approximately $10-15 billion in revenue annually, according to the World Bank.

Murphy acknowledges aroma tagging faces many challenges before it may be a viable tracking tool. The chemicals applied to the wood must be able to withstand harsh conditions such as freezing temperatures or sweltering heat, transportation over dirty ground or on the back of a wind whipped truck, and they must last for long periods of time if the logs are shipped in the hold of an international vessel.

To track wood all the way to the finished product the smellprint must also be able to undergo various treatment processes, such as the application of a preservative or drying in a kiln, and still maintain it aromatic characteristics.

Currently, logs are tracked using visual barcodes or brands but these methods have their own problems. Staples used to attach barcodes to logs can interfere with the sawing process, barcodes may be lost in transport, and brands may not contain much information.

Aroma tags could provide a low cost tracking system that would not interfere with mill processing. "The great thing about aromas is that they can be sprayed on," says Murphy, "Modern harvesters now have the ability to include spray systems."

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags represent another tracking technology in development. These tags, which emit a radio signal that can be read by a scanner, are already used for inventory management in many retail chains. The main downside to RFID tags is their cost.

"Over time as these technologies mature, people will figure out which one does a better job of accomplishing a specific task", says David Briggs the director of the Precision Forestry Cooperative at the University of Washington, who has done some initial testing of RFID tags with trees. "We'll probably see some combination of these approaches."

Murphy and co-author Robert Franich from the New Zealand Forest Research Institute published an article describing their preliminary aroma tagging work in the February 2004 edition of Forest Products Journal.

The team found that one of the tags applied to pine logs, a scent named delta-decalactone, could be identified with 85% accuracy after 19 days of storage under "ideal" conditions. However, scents applied to logs before they were sawed could not be correctly identified after cutting.

Based on this study, Murphy found significant hurdles with the current state of aroma identification technology. "The current electronic noses deal with a combination of scents. What we would need is an electronic nose that could sort out individual scents. The technology is not there yet," says Murphy.

Aroma identification systems are used in other industries. The German-based company, Bundesdruckerei GmbH, employs the technology to combat product and brand piracy. The food service industry is developing aroma sensing systems to test for freshness of fruits and vegetables, and for grading blends of coffee and tobacco.

Other industries are interested in aroma sensing technology as well: the medical and dental industry would like to use it for detecting disease, law-enforcement agencies would like to use it for detecting drugs, explosives, or weapons such as anthrax, and the space industry could use it to test for contamination of returning shuttles.

The first electronic nose instrumentation was developed in the early 1980s by researchers at the University of Warwick in England and the California Institute of Technology.

Many challenges have to be overcome before any advanced tracking system can be used in the forestry industry. Murphy doesn't anticipate these difficulties will be solved for at least five to ten years, but says the technology is expanding at a rapid rate.

"This is the direction everybody wants to go in," says Briggs. "The questions right now are largely waiting and working with the companies that are developing these technologies to understand the kinds of forestry applications we are interested in."

David Lawrence is a biologist and has studied science writing at the University of Washington.

Image at Top:

Chemical scents may one day replace the barcode and paint tags currently used by the forestry industry. Photo: Manfred Mielke, USDA Forest Service, www.forestryimages.org


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