Towards a test to verify that wood has been heattreated to the ISPM15 standard

Abstract

International trade of wood including dunnage is a wellknown pathway for spreading diseases and woodboring insects between countries To mitigate this risk the International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures No 15 (ISPM15) states that wood to confirm that wood has been properly heattreated After preliminary investigations of 12 enzymes and 3 sugars from pine xylem experiments focused on malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and fructose Samples from the surfaces of heattreated Pinus radiata wood exhibited decreased MDH activity and increased fructose concentration However samples from 5 mm deeper in the profile of heated wood showed similar MDH activity to unheated wood but contained relatively lower fructose concentrations There is potential to exploit heatinduced changes in MDH activity and fructose concentration to develop a quick easilyused assay for verifying compliance of wood packaging materials with ISPM15