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 branches. Several experts have discovered this in recent years as part of the Dendromass4Europe (D4EU) research project. It was conducted under the leadership of Norbert Weber, Professor of Forest Policy and Forest Resource Economics at the Technical University of Dresden
The poplars have been cultivated on hard-to-farm land since 2017 and grow in so-called short rotation plantations (SRP) on around 1,300 hectares of agricultural land in north-western Slovakia. The cultivation of poplars probably has a positive effect on the environment and, according to the Slovakian Institute for Applied Ecology "Daphne", even leads to better soil quality in the long term.
In addition to the seven institutes of Dresden University of Technology, 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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