Natural Resistance of Imported Timbers Against Termites and Fungi in Indian Condition—A Comparison

Timber continues to be the most vividly used structural commodity even during the twenty-first century despite the advent of many modern constructional materials. Although India is blessed with 4000 woody plant species, the country is timber deficient. In order to bridge the gap between supplies and demand, timber from different countries is being imported. But the performance of such timbers under various service conditions in different Indian environments is not known. Since information on these lines is desirable to put any timber to its best end-use, a study was performed to understand resistance of these timbers against termites and fungi in Indian condition. A total of twenty timbers that originated from different countries together with Indian grown Hevea brasiliensis were subjected to field trails against termites at six agro-eco-zones of India as per Indian standards (BIS—4833: 1993 and BIS—401: 1982) and laboratory tests against fungi as per BIS—4873: 2008. The trial followed by data analysis showed that performance of many of the tropical imported timbers is reasonably good, whereas performance of temperate timbers was rather poor. Results of the study were compared to see whether there is any deference in the performance of same timber species in field against termites and in laboratory against fungi. The analysis revealed that there is no difference in the resistance class of imported woods against fungi and termites and findings are discussed in this communication.