Whether lightweight furniture panels, plant pots or decking boards - they can all be made (in part) from fast-growing poplars or from their ground bark and twigs. Several experts have discovered this in recent years in the Dendromass4Europe (D4EU) research project. The project was led by Norbert Weber, Professor of Forest Policy and Forest Resource Economics at the Technical University of Dresden.
Since 2017, the poplars have been cultivated on land that is difficult to manage and grow in so-called short rotation plantations (SRC) on around 1,300 hectares of agricultural land in northwestern Slovakia. The cultivation of poplars probably has a positive effect on the environment and even leads to better soil quality in the long term, according to the Slovakian Institute for Applied Ecology "Daphne".
In addition to the seven institutes of the Technical University of Dresden, Daphne and the Austrian research center Wood K plus, other companies were also involved in the research project. These include IKEA Industry Malacky (Slovakia), Pulp-Tec Compound GmbH & Co KG (Germany) and TerrainEco (Czech Republic). They are currently testing prototypes.
Source: idw-online.de/tu-dresden.de/Further information: dendromass4europe.eu
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