Timber definitions and terms for quarantine purposes

Antiques: Manufactured wooden items over 100 years old.

Bark: The external natural layer covering trees and branches. This material is distinct and separable from processed timber.

Bearers: Load bearing structural timber components.

Bond: Store or premises registered with Quarantine or Customs for the detention of imported goods prior to their completion of import requirements.

BPL: Burnt pine longicorn beetle.

Break bulk: Non-containerised cargo. In relation to ‘Breakbulk depot’ a quarantine approved place where containers are unpacked and often other services provided such as washing, cleaning and fumigation facilities.

Bundle: An amount of timber that is strapped to allow it to be handled as a unit either by forklift or by crane.

Cable drums: Wooden carriers designed to carry wire rope and cable.

Cambium/Cambial layer: The growing part of the tree just under the bark. A single layer of cells between the woody part of the tree and the bark. Division of these cells results in diameter growth of the tree through formation of wood cells (xylem) and inner bark (phloem).

Cants: Squared logs with a large amount of the sapwood removed.

Carvings: Ornaments made from wood usually made by hand.

Cases: A box of wooden slats, with little or no spaces between each slat, for packing and transporting.

Certs: Certificates - may refer to treatment certificates e.g. fumigation certificates, cooking certificates, packing certificates, cleanliness certificates, phytosanitary certificates, zoosanitary certificates, etc.

Chep: Commercial brand of Australian made pallets, usually made of hardwood.

Chipboard: A resin-bonded artificial wood made from wood fibre.

Consignment: A property sent to an agent for sale, storage or shipment.

Coreboard: See chipboard.

Crate: A box or framework of wooden slats, often with several board spaces between each slat, for packing and transporting.

Decay/rots: Includes for example Annosus root and butt rot.

Dressed timber: Timber machined to a smooth surface.

Dunnage: Materials used during shipping for the stabilisation of cargo. Materials of quarantine concern include timber and motor tyres.

Fibreboard: See chipboard.

Frass: Dust and droppings produced by insect activity.

Fumigation: Chemical treatment performed on goods using a toxic gas. May be performed in a fumigation chamber, fumigation tent or as sheet fumigation.

Fungal decay: (commonly but incorrectly called wet rot and dry rot) Degradation of the structural components of wood by wood-decay fungi. Loss due to destruction of cellulose and/or lignin by wood decay fungi.

GAS: Giant African Snail.

Glut: Refers to timber that is used to support bundles of timber.

Green sawn: Rough sawn timber that is not treated or dried (i.e. off the saw).

Heartwood: The inner layer of the tree (wood). The often dark-coloured denser wood that appears in the inner portion of a cross-section of a tree.

ISPM 15: Refer to ISPM 15 section of AQIS website.

Jumbo Pack: A pack of sawn timber consisting of several bundles that are handled like a conventional container because of its size.

Knockdown spray: An insecticide applied to control adult insects until a quarantine treatment can be performed.

Laminate: To separate or split wood into thin layers and construct panels by placing layer upon layer.

Lift Van: Rectangular wood box uses as packaging materials, often used for LCL—less than container—loads of Household Goods and Personal Effects.

MAF: Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry.

Mark: Term used to describe a number of bundles of timber of the same species, imported by the same importer, usually having the same dimensions.

Mechanically processed wood: This includes such things as animal litter, bark mulch, sawdust and wood chips.

Mould: A type of fungus.

Myrtaceae: A taxonomic group (family) of plants that includes many timber producing species including Eucalyptus.

Packaging blocks: See dunnage.

Pallet: A platform for the support of cargo during shipment. Generally of standard dimensions to allow for ease of stacking. Pallets used in shipping may be timber, plywood, metal, plastic or moulded fibreboard construction.

Panel Products: Collective term for laminate and plywood.

Peeler block: Piece of wood used to produce ribbons of veneer.

Peeler cores: Circular remains of a ‘peeler block’ after peeling/lathing has taken place to produce veneer.

Permanent preservative: A chemical or a mixture of chemicals in a form suitable for application to timber in order to preserve it from attack by timber destroying agents.

Pine wilt; Pine wilt nematode: a serious disease of pine (Pinus spp.) caused by the pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus.

Pine pitch canker: is a serious fungal disease of pine trees caused by Fusarium circinatum.

Quarantine Approved Premises (QAP): Area approved by AQIS for the performance of a quarantine approved activity e.g. cold treatments, storage, processing, fumigation, analytical services, etc.

Retention: The quantity of a permanent preservative retained after treatment in a specified volume of timber, expressed as % mass/mass based on the oven dried mass of the timber.

Roundwood: Timber that has not been milled with bark removed (usually small dimension compared with logs).

Saprophytic: An organism, especially a fungus or bacterium, growing on organic matter.

Sapstain: Commonly caused by a fungus causing a dark/blue stain in the sapwood of certain species of trees. See ‘stain fungi’.

Sapwood: The outer layer of the tree usually containing a high percentage of starch. The outer layer of the tree (wood) between the inner bark (cambium) and the heartwood. The light-coloured wood that appears on the outer portion of a cross-section of a tree.

Skids: Refers to something that is placed under cargo to make it easier to manoeuvre. Generally consists of two pieces of timber that are placed under cargo to allow a forklift to raise the goods or to slide the cargo.

Slats: A long thin narrow strip of wood, metal, etc.

Stain fungi: Black stain root disease and Blue stain fungi.

Stickering: Spacers placed between layers of timber to allow effective fumigation.

Sudden Oak Death (SOD): A serious canker disease of oaks and many other plants cased by the fungus Phytophthora ramorum.

Timber flitches: Large pieces of sawn timber from which smaller boards can be milled.

Timber Mouldings: Timber machined into a desired shape (e.g. plank or sown timber).

Timber: A term of commerce for wood.

Wood packaging material: Wood or wood products (excluding paper products) used in supporting, protecting or carrying a commodity.

Wood shavings: Thin, small curls of wood.

Wood wool: Long, very fine wood shavings.