Most of the methods to evaluate the biological durability of woods have focused on decay fungi and termite as deteriorating organisms and it is well known that one of the most important factors affecting the biological characteristics of wood is extractives. Bioassays for evaluating the biological activities of wood extractives have been mainly conducted with treated filter papers for termites or extractives- containing agar media for decay fungi. Using these methods, the separation of crude extracts and bioassays are very time consuming. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) is a useful method for separating the mixture of organic compounds. It is also applicable to the crude extracts of wood consisting of many compounds. In TLC, silicagel, cellulose and other materials are used as stationary phases and we speculated that it would be to sepatare the crude extract on cellulose TLC plate (Cell - TLC) and directly apply it to bioassays, since termites and decay fungi can use the cellulose layer in Cell - TLC as their carbon sources. In this paper we report the applicability of Cell - TLC for biocidal screening of wood extractives against termites and decay fungi.

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