The Canadian wood preservation industry is interested the introduction of new preservative formulations, some of which are intended only for above ground uses. Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency requires data from field tests under Canadian conditions but these can take many years to generate results. Forintek has therefore developed an accelerated above ground test, under contract to a variety of clients. This paper focuses on the test method and provides examples of results on four formulations tested for one anonymous client. Short lengths of treated and untreated nominal 2x6s were supported on stainless steel screws and intermittently sprayed with deionised water from above. All the test material was exposed to spores of Gleophyllum. sepiarium and Oligoporus placentus from fruitbodies grown on Petri dishes that were suspended from the ceiling and to spores from outside air introduced at intervals via a fan. In addition, half of the boards were exposed to mycelial colonization from wood blocks infected with G. sepiarium. The test material was evaluated using the AWPA 10-0 rating system. Six-month data from this new accelerated above-ground test method suggest that it will be capable of discriminating between treatments that may be resistant only to spore germination and those that are resistant to both spores and mycelium.

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