Against the background of the European timber trade regulation EUTR, commenced to law by March 2013, the determination of wood species and tracing of its origin is getting a great importance. A promising approach for establishing fast and reliable tracking systems for wood products is DNA analysis. A critical point is the extraction of analysable DNA from the wood and its lignified cell walls. Thus, aim of the work was the analysis of DNA content in different areas of the cross section of green and dry, well-seasoned wood from pine, spruce and beech, using quantitative, real-time PCR analysis. DNA from green timber was successfully extracted and amplified with primer set ycf3hm at all three wood species and zones of cross-section. Whereas the results with pine and spruce confirmed the expectation, that the DNA content decreases from cambium to pith, this was not observed with beech. DNA detection with 20 year old well-seasoned wood was successful only with beech. Further systematic studies are necessary to get better information about the influence of wood processing and ageing on DNA quantity and quality.

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