Early experience with aroma tagging and electronic nose technology for log tracking

Worldwide, the movement of logs from forest to customer can be conservatively estimated at over 5 billion logs per annum. As markets become more sophisticated and demanding, there is growing interest in being able to track the movement of individual logs from stump to mill or at least determine the chain-of-custody of groups of logs back to individual stands. Some segments of the international forest industry would ideally like to be able to track wood products from the standing tree through to the ultimate product: "from seedling to rocking chair." This paper describes early experience with aroma-tagging and electronic nose technology for tracking logs from the forest through the mill and out of the drying kilns. Trials indicate that the current technology is most likely to be successful in chain-of-custody applications from forest to mill door. Further development of new procedures or new technology could result in the ability to track individual logs.