National Hardwood Magazine - May 2022

QUEBEC Continued Oak is

QUEBEC Continued Oak is steady on domestic markets and improving in the Far East, noted contacts. Poplar sales have declined since last year, and many scaled back purchases even though demand for this species and for finished goods is still strong. Prices for this species are coming down. Kiln-dried prices are coming down, but are still high from a historic perspective. The Bank of Canada (BoC) raised its key lending rate on March 2nd to 0.50 percent, the first rate hike since 2018. This rate affects rates Canadian consumers get on Any Way You Cut It... ISK Protects It. Proven Mold Control...Powerful Sapstain Protection Trust ISK for Your Wood Solution. NeXgen ® End Coatings & Paint PQ-80 ® 1-800-238-2523 • 416 E. Brooks Rd. • Memphis, TN 38109 • www.iskbiocides.com NeXgen ® , Tuff-Brite ® and CosPaint ® are registered trademarks of ISK Americas Incorporated. PQ-8 ® and PQ-80 ® are registered trademarks of IBC Manufacturing Company. a mortgage, lines of credit and savings accounts at their own banks. The increase is the first of a series of anticipated hikes that some analysts believe could see the overnight rate rise by 175 basis points by the end of 2022 as the BoC attempts to control a rise in inflation, which increased to 5.1 percent in January 2022. The Bank cautioned that “inflation is now expected to be higher in the near term than projected in January. The Bank will use its monetary policy tools to return inflation to the 2 percent target. “Economic growth in Canada was very strong in the fourth quarter of last year at 6.7 percent. This is stronger than the Bank’s projection and confirms its view that economic slack has been absorbed,” according to the statement. Mortgage lenders note that lending rates remain near history lows and the most BoC increase may not have much effect on buyer demand. Many variable-rate mortages, which are affected by overnight rate increases, have an interest rate of below 2 percent. Even a rise of 175 basis points over the course of the next eight months, a variable-rate mortage of 2 percent would only rise to 3.75 percent, well below the rate that consumers qualified at. Despite the rate hike, this can be seen as positive for those in the Hardwood industry as consumers are still planning on home-buying, and purchasing Hardwood finished goods or tackling renovation projects once they move into their new homes. n NEWS DEVELOPMENTS Continued from page 15 furnishings, with a focus on on-demand production. The company manufactures its furniture at a separate facility in Wyoming, where it currently employs 22 people. For more information, go to www. rollandhill.com. MSU Researchers Use AI To Better Evaluate Lumber A 0,000 federal grant will help Mississippi State University (MSU) researchers, based in Starkville, MS, use artificial intelligence to increase the accuracy of lumber evaluation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture award funds an innovative research project in MSU’s Department of Sustainable Bioproducts that aims to improve lumber grading systems with a machine-learning model. The research will identify characteristics that human graders and current auto-grading technologies might otherwise miss—especially characteristics which, relative to their nature and extent, impact the value of each piece of lumber. Assistant Research Professor Dercilio Junior Lopes explained the goal is to create another tool to complement current grading practices and technologies. “Visual graders have high accuracy, around 95 percent, but worker fatigue decreases that accuracy. Additionally, auto-grading equipment can struggle with certain wood species, especially Hardwoods like Black Walnut, in which the wood’s dark hue can make it hard to discern knots. This work offers checks and balances for the weary worker and these problematic wood species,” Lopes explained. “We won’t replace lumber grading experts or auto-grading equipment. We’ll simply provide another tool for rapid decision making in the fastpaced production environment.” The MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center team will create an image dataset of common wood strength reducing characteristics, curate and annotate these images, and then process them into deep learning-based image segmentation models. From there, they will integrate the machine-learned algorithm into user-friendly software in partnership with MSU’s National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center, or NSPARC. To learn more, go to www.msstate.edu. n HMA UPDATE Continued from page 16 More about the HMA There is strength in numbers. Our Association provides members a significant connection to a unique forest products industry brain trust. I call it a collective wisdom that our members share openly, and with great enthusiasm. And for many of them, this extraordinary producer-toproducer networking and information exchange is the greatest member service. If HMA sounds like your kind of trade Association, visit HMAmembers.org for a closer look. Then contact me, ljovanovich@hardwood.org, to discuss joining up with a group of people that will positively affect the rest of your life, both professionally and personally. n It’s BIG. It’s NEW. It’s what WE DO. With 300% more capacity, we’re your ideal partner for cut-to-length and machine-to-spec orders. Atlanta, GA Cleveland, GA Crystal Spring, PA Clarksville, TN www.hardwoodweb.com 800-476-5393 66 MAY 2022 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE MAY 2022 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 67 ISK BIOCIDES ISLAND.indd 7 5/18/17 3:14 PM