Studies were carried out to evaluate the suitability of Canadian prairie-grown, short-rotation hybrid poplar for the manufacture of high value solid wood products, including appearance grade lumber, plywood, laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and oriented strandboard (OSB). For appearance grade lumber applications, hybrid poplar was found to be an attractive wood as it machined and finished well. This wood can be finished to take on a number of different looks or to resemble other species. Hybrid poplar would appear suitable in applications such as millwork, mouldings, turnings and bedroom furniture where other softer hardwood species such as red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) and yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.) are currently being used. Hybrid poplar veneer was suitable for manufacturing high quality plywood, either used by itself, or mixed with other species such as aspen (Populus tremuloides Mich.) or spruce (Picea spp.). If the hybrid poplar veneer is stress graded, a portion of the veneer would be suitable for manufacturing structural grade LVL. Hybrid poplar can be processed commercially using procedures similar to those used for manufacturing aspen plywood and LVL. Properties of OSB manufactured from hybrid poplar were fully equivalent to those of OSB manufactured from aspen. Hybrid poplar can be substituted for aspen in OSB at any level with no apparent effect on panel properties.

The bark of black spruce was thermo-mechanically refined and used to manufacture binderless bark-based fiberboard with various pressing temperatures, times, and panel structures in order to utilize an abundant bark resource for a better value-added application. The test results indicated that it is technically feasible to manufacture binderless fiberboard with refined black spruce bark through self-bonding under elevated temperatures over a reasonable period of pressing time. Binderless bark-based fiberboards with a homogeneous structure had very poor flexural properties due to the poor strength of bark itself; however, by using a sandwich structure with 30wt% wood fiber in the surface layers and 70wt% bark in the core layer it was possible to sufficiently improve panel flexural properties so that the manufactured binderless bark-based fiberboards was able to meet the mechanical property requirements of 115-grade fiberboard according to ANSI A208.2 (2009). Refining conditions had a great impact on the mechanical properties of binderless bark-based fiberboard.

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