Significant efforts have been made to improve wood quality by selecting optimal wood properties tailored to specific applications, resulting in the production of high-quality products. However, traditional chemical and physical characterization methods pose a significant challenge due to their high costs and labor-intensive nature. To address this, the integration of rapid, non-destructive techniques offers a transformative approach to characterizing the chemical and physical properties of lignocellulosic materials. This non-conventional and high-throughput techniques, such as near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis (e.g., PCA, PLS), have proven invaluable in analyzing wood’s chemical composition, physical properties, and durability. The adoption of these techniques is driven by the need to process a large number of samples, a critical requirement for improving forest species to meet the increasing demand for wood products. Furthermore, these methods are essential for screening forest stands and populations, facilitating their optimized utilization for the selection process by reducing analysis time and lowering associated costs.
We invite studies with a focus on the biochemical content and composition of wood in order to expand the body of knowledge and to advance research in this domain.
Guest Editors: Dr. José Carlos Carvalho Rodrigues and Dr. Ana Alves
Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/special_issues/12JIE01429
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 November 2025
