Test field characteristics and impact of test fields on wood degradation is important when testing wood protection. The current EN 252 standard has no requirement for knowledge of decay hazards, but most commonly a test field is known as a “brown”,- “white”,- or “soft rot” field. To understand which decay hazard wood preservatives are tested against, each test field should be characterized. Our purpose here is to outline a number of different approaches that we have been using to characterize four test fields belonging to the Department of Forest Products, SLU, Sweden. For characterization we isolated fungi from EN 252 Scots pine stakes by using different media and identified the isolated fungi by DNA sequencing. DNA profiles were established for Scots pine mini- stakes as well as microscopy characterization of stake cross sections for decay type and degree of attack. MOE and mass loss was measured for the mini-stakes at one test field. For all fields, the pick test of EN 252 stakes were performed according to the European Standard EN 252. A summary of problems and possibilities of the techniques are presented. Our results show that by combining different approaches like molecular techniques with microscopy and/or strength tests, it is possible to obtain good characterization of test fields, the inherent fungi, and their decay capacity cannot be described by using only one approach.

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