Relaunching poplar growing

The Italian poplar is the main source of supply for a significant portion of primary processing industries. For this occupies a leading position within the “forest-based industries”.  The short-shift allows this type of plantation to be the only system capable of ensuring a strengthening of the domestic production of wood while limiting dependence on foreign resources without damaging the wood of natural forests, or to compromise environmental functions, protective and recreational functions.

Created to meet the needs of the industries of pulp, the poplar has been addressed later to the production of larger trees to be devoted to stripping. Currently the majority of the best parts of the logs is used by industries and offset from those of fruit and vegetable packaging. The byproducts are intended for the production of particle board. Very limited, compared to the past, now is the use of poplar wood for sawing. Despite this position of preeminence over other wood products, the poplar is undergoing a deep crisis, as witnessed by the significant reduction of cultivated areas in Italy passed from 150 thousand hectares of the ’70s to the current 80 thousand hectares.

 The shortage of domestic supply of poplar wood, caused by residues of discounts or other waste from industrial changes, has led the industry to turn to chipboard alternative sources of supply, and negatively affect the market price of timber. The causes lie in a number of reasons, including agricultural land policy interventions that have created an uncertain and often contradictory picture regarding the location of the cultivation of poplar.

Assopannelli hopes for a recovery of  the central role of poplar plywood and panel industries particle board. This is possible due to the specificity of crops suitable for the requirements expressed by different sectors of specific transformation. The poplar timbers are suitable for obtaining high-quality veneer for the manufacture of plywood, veneered and plywood and sawn timber joinery. The availability of poplar roundwood can be used for the manufacture of wooden packaging, and pallets in particular, while poplar wood biomass is useful in the manufacture of chipboard and for energy use.

In addition to the difficulty of raw material also the increases of urea (raw material used for the production of plywood), becomes a problem for plywood manufacturers as it emerged at the Feic meeting in St. Petersburg . In the period from January to July 2011, prices rose from 375/380 euros per tonne to current 460/480 euros per tonne.