Poplar as a light hardwood is appropriate for plywood production. Owing to its low natural durability it is generally recommended to preserve it in all conditions where risks of fungal attack may be present. A research project has been carried out on preservative treatments of plywood commodities. Parameters studied were various treatment cycles, three types of plywood, and a number of solvent and waterborne preservatives. Impregnated materials were exposed to different fungi in order to assess the decay resistance. It was concluded that no special treating cycles were needed to achieve the target uptake levels. However, based on the toxic limits for some of the preservatives the biological tests releaved the need for higher loadings. This points to the different approach needed for plywood preservation. Though small differences in the treatability of the three types of plywood were observed, the glueline interface generally did not have a significant effect on penetration.

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