Pulpwood

Pulpwood refers to timber with the principal use of making wood pulp for paper production.

The fiber length of the cellulose fiber is the most important parameter of the pulpwood and determines what it may be used for. The first separation is into softwood and hardwood, that have long and short fibers respectively. In paper production fiber from softwood give tensile strength and fibers from hardwood give opacity.

In the logging of mixed forest stands, the better trees are usually used for sawlogs for lumber production, while the inferior trees and components are harvested for pulpwood production. Pulpwood usually derives from four types of woody materials in a mixed logging operation:

Natural forest stands may also be harvested solely for pulpwood where, for various reasons, the value of the trees as sawlogs is low. This may be due to the predominant species in the forest stand (for example, some aspen forests in northern North America), or to the relative proximity of the nearest sawmill or pulp mill.

Pulpwood is also harvested from plantations/tree farms established for the specific purpose of growing pulpwood, with little or minimal sawlog production. Monoculture of species intended specifically for pulpwood include Pinus taeda/loblolly and Pinus elliottii/slash pine/pines in the southern USA; various species of eucalyptus (most commonly Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus grandis) in Latin America, Iberian Peninsula, Australia, south-east Asia and southern Africa and acacia (most commonly Acacia mangium) in south-east Asia and southern Africa.

Salvage cuts after forest fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, or other natural disasters are often used for pulpwood. An alternative source of wood for use in Kraft process/Kraft pulping is recovered lumber from demolition, industrial processing of wood and wooden pallets.

Saw residuals are used as pulp wood. The most important of these are the side cuttings from lumber edger. This gives wood with almost only sapwood (wood)/sapwood and no heartwood. The sapwood is easier to Pulp (paper)/pulp. due to a more open structure and less content of Black liquor|extractive than the heartwood. The fiber length of sapwood is generally longer than the fiber length of heartwood. The sapwood is also normally lighter and that is an advantage when producing mechanical pulp as less Bleaching of wood pulp bleaching is needed.

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Wikipedia