Deterioration of Logs in Cold Decks: A Survey of Information Applying to the Pacific Northwest

Logs remaining in the woods during warm weather are vulnerable to attack by insects and to infection fungi. Infected logs may deteriorate during later storage in dry decks, or they may appear to deteriorate while wet-decked under water sprays. In dry storage damage from stain, insects, and drying stress (checks) may appear in a few months or less during warm weather; decay usually is not evident until after a year or more of unprotected storage. Procedures for protecting logs are to process them as quickly as possible or to sprinkle them with water if decked storage is necessary. Short on-off sprinkling cycles seem as effective as continuous spraying. Sprinkling may increase the permeability of sapwood but causes no important change in strength or durability. Environmental restrictions on runoff water from wet decks usually have not prevented operators in the Pacific Northwest from sprinkling decked logs. Estimates of loss of scale of Douglas-fir, hemlock, and true fir logs stored in dry decks in the Pacific Northwest ranged from zero to five percent during the first year and from 5 to 15 percent during the second. Estimates of loss during a year in sprinkled decks were zero to 10 percent from ponderosa pine and zero percent for Douglas-fir logs. Comparative value losses reported after a year in dry decks (1953) were $13 to $14 per thousand board feet for ponderosa pine and $6.67 per thousand board feet (1954) for Idaho white pine logs. Losses after one summer were $4.55 per thousand board feet (1966) for white spruce and an estimated potential loss of $25 per thousand board feet (1971) in unprotected high grade hemlock logs.

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