| Summary: | Efforts to improve productivity of wood industry must be supported by increasing supply of wood as raw
materials. The limited wood supply due to naturalforest degradation can be increased by wood harvestedfrom
plantationforests, including wood of sur en (foona sureniMerr) as one species composing theforests. In timber
processing wood drying is an important aspect determining product quality. This study aimed to identify the
effect of drying method and sortimen dimension on drying character of suren wood.
Trunks of 3 suren trees of seven to nine years old were cut from Manggihan village, Getasan district,
Semarang regency. The bolts were sawn (using blambangan method) to obtain sortimen papan wood of 3 cm
(thickness), 8 cm (width), and 210 cm (length) and sortiment usuk wood of 4 cm, 6 cm and 210 cm. Beside two
levels of sortimen size, two levels of drying method, e.g. natural and solar drying were also used in this
research. Resulted data were analyzed with factorial complete randomized design. Measured parameters
consisted of drying rate, dimension shrinkage and some drying defects e.g. bowing, cupping, end check, surface
check and fungi infection.
Research results showed that drying methods significantly affect drying rate, but not other parameters.
Also, product dimension affects significantly to drying rate, but not other parameters. Interactions between the
two factors did not give any significant effect on all parameter. To produce the same drying level on the same
product size, solar drying method isfaster than natural one. To reach dry wood with 14% moisture content in
solar drying method, sortimen papan and usuk needs 23 and 26.8 drying days respectively, while in natural
drying method, the same product size needs 44.6 and 48.50 days of drying respectively.
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