>>12035084Unfortunately, farming trees is really only viable near the equator. Growth cycles in the north are literally 10-20x longer than those of trees near the equator. Although there is a difference in the ratio of mature and juvenile wood between trees of the two geographical regions (which affects specific strength), it's not substantial. Either way, specific strength isn't even the main issue with wood building materials; it's variability (which is minimized by engineered wood products such as CLT).
The reason logging in the northern hemisphere is viable is because of the massive amount of forested land in comparison to forests near the equator. Canada and Russia are fucking massive and full of forests, and it's cheap to cut trees on a lot of it because most of it is owned by the federal government and the stumpage fees are rather low (at least in Canada, I'm not very well versed in the Russian forestry industry unfortunately). There's actually lawsuits going on because a lot of US companies are saying the Canadian government lets forestry companies harvest from crown land for too low of a stumpage fee, therefore they can't compete, since logging on private land in the US is usually more expensive, and Canadian logging companies are usually larger companies that have economies of scale on their side as well. In fact, Canadian forestry conglomerates are buying up a lot of private land in the states as an investment. Japanese forestry conglomerates are doing the same but with New Zealand (Sumitomo Forestry is the most important here, they're fucking massive).
Sorry for going off on a tirade but I love this industry. I'm a full-blown wood autist.
