Moisture content of lumber produced from dead western white pine and lodgepole pine trees /

One of the Rocky Mountain area's major problems is the utilization of insect-and disease-killed timber.More and more of these trees are being harvested as a part of green timber sales.The efficient handling and processing of this material depends to a large extent on its moisture content.In the two studies reported here, the moisture content of lumber sawed from dead western white pine and lodgepole pine logs was determined using both a moisture meter and the ovendry test method.In both studies the moisture content of lumber from dead trees was about half that reported for green lumber of the same species.Test sections cut from a sample of the boards showed that the dead log lumber had essentially no moisture gradient and only a slight amount of drying stress.This information indicates the kiln drying time for dead log lumber should be about half the time required to dry green lumber.A dry kiln operator can determine the appropriate drying conditions for a charge of dead lumber by measuring its moisture content with a moisture meter.