Plantation-grown whitewood timber in Vanuatu: challenges and opportunities for export and domestic use

Whitewood (Endospermum medullosum) is a useful timber species, previously sourced from native forests and now available from plantations in Vanuatu. However, plantation-grown whitewood will have about 30% more knotty wood than previously experienced in logs from native forest. This will impact on the economics of growing and processing whitewood, and on potential uses of the timber. Opportunities to add value to knotty wood are to produce large section structural lumber, to recover short lengths of clear wood for furniture, and to treat heartwood with preservative chemicals to enable structural use in exposed and in-ground applications.