The self-sufficiency rate of wood had drastically decreased due to the policies on urban architecture and forest resources after 1945. Recently, however, several policies have been introduced to promote domestic wood utilization as countermeasures against global warming and they have shown signs of successful outcomes. On the other hand, a decline in housing starts will affect the demand for wood, which is estimated to be approximately 48.5million m³ by 2030. Therefore, development of overseas markets is necessary to maintain existing wood industry levels and thereby increase demand for domestic wood. The result of trial calculation indicates the possibility of achieving a 100% self-sufficiency rate and potential of wood given an export of 17.5 and 9.5million m³ of domestic wood, respectively. The characteristics of wood as international commodities should be considered for the export of domestic woods. It is necessary to develop brand-building and promotion of domestic wood products in order to increase its international competitiveness with respect to cost and certification. The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020 should be positioned as an important exhibition and an opportunity to show Japanese high awareness, knowledge and technology of wood utilization and timber architecture.

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Stagnation in demand has continued for the long term after the times of mass consumption ended. Such a situation causes severe price competition for ordinary products without any character, resulting that small-scale enterprises with inferior competitiveness are overwhelmed, and only large companies with high productivity can survive. Some small companies manufacturing wooden products in Nara prefecture, however, have been well-managed. In this review paper, three companies among them were investigated for their business operations, such as manufacturing and development of new products, to elucidate their secret of success in business. Consequently, it is extremely important to grasp consumer and social needs precisely, and to supply high-value added products differentiated from others to meet these needs. To do so, continuous technological development by utilizing the subsidy system of national and local governments is indispensable. It is also necessary to make good use of the know-how and technical seeds found at public research institutes or/and universities. In addition, the formation of industrial clusters by cooperation between companies with specific technologies becomes an advantage in order to survive competition.

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Woody resource can be a sustainable resource if it is kept under appropriate management. However, because of ad-hoc based consumption/renewal management, woody resource in Japan has been on the verge of losing its supply/demand balance and may become insufficient at any time in the near future. Furthermore, environmental load reduction issues related to its utilization are as important as the management. For planning better wood resource utilization and environmental load reduction, it is essential to discuss them based on material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessment (LCA). This paper overviews the MFA and LCA studies relevant to these issues, while clarifying the future tasks to be assigned.

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Wood Education including school education, professional development and life-long learning, is a key to the realization of sustainable utilization of forest resources. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss current issues of wood education and educational researches in the Japan Wood Research Society (JWRS). This paper also shows required frameworks of wood education for enhanced practice, and research of wood education for the next generation. Based on science and technology governance study, 1) consensus-building of the goal of education, 2) clarification of the scope and the sequence of the education, 3) accumulation of practical data and 4) promotion of practice and research in JWRS were proposed.

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New techniques such as rapid freezing and immunolabeling have provided us outstanding results on secondary cell wall formation over the last 20 years. The former technique has revealed the ultrastructure of the developing secondary cell wall in nearly a living state, and the latter has provided the information on the localization of enzymes involved in the synthesis of cell wall components and on the deposition of each hemicellulose during secondary cell wall formation. A new biochemical technique has provided us a new idea of monolignol transportation from cell to cell wall. In the next 20 years, more detailed information on cellulose synthesis and function of the Golgi apparatus regarding hemicellulose synthesis will be provided. In addition, the mechanism of monolignol transportation will become clear.

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The parenchyma cells in wood survive and keep their physiological activity for a long time, from a few years to several decades, whereas the vessel elements, tracheids, and wood fiber, which function as water conduit or strengthen the stem, die immediately after cell maturation. Parenchyma cells play important roles for the trees' longevity. Functional material transport is necessary for the parenchyma cells to store and recycle the materials for the trees' growth. Also, during heartwood formation, reserve materials convert into heartwood substances and cell death of the parenchyma cells occurs. This text focuses on material transport and heartwood formation, and reviews recent studies as well as presents challenges to future studies of these functions.

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With regard to countermeasures to environmental disruption and exhaustion of natural resources, industrial utilization of wood-based materials is emphasized in recent years. Therefore, upgrading of forming techniques of wood-based materials is recognized to be an effective solution. For that reason, current trends and future issues of forming techniques are reviewed in this paper. Deformation processing using superplastic behavior of wood-based materials has been developed. As a key technique of deformation processing, a mechanism for improvement of fluidity is introduced. For further progress in this new manufacturing method, modification of raw material and improvement in deformation technique including mold technology are also required.

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The future outlook for research on livability, living comfort, and amenity in wood sciences is discussed. The main purpose of wood research is how to use wood effectively. The important basic viewpoint using wood effectively is “to use wood is a human.” Therefore, we establish a foundation on the perspective of “to use wood is a human” and study the relationship between the five human senses and the physical properties of wood. It leads to living comfort research and is encompassed simultaneously by the wood/human relations research. In this paper, I considered how to advance living comfort research in wood sciences in the future by surveying research trends past and present and by referring to the concept of wood/human relations research.

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The current trend of studying the effect of wood utilization on human senses can be grouped into three general approaches, as follows: 1) the investigation of chemical and physical properties of wood beneficial to human wellbeing; 2) the evaluation of psychological responses to wood by means of indirect methods such as questionnaires and behavioral observation; and 3) the evaluation of physiological responses to wood through direct methods such as the measurement of heartbeat, blood pressure, and brain activity. To date, research results of stage 3) have most frequently been disseminated in society, but it is also necessary to develop research activities of stage 2) from case studies to epidemiological studies that can be generalized in the medium to long term. It is important for the development of the wood industry not only to promote research and development activities but also to broadcast the results of its research to the general public.

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The number of research topics of seismic performance of wooden houses increased dramatically during last two decades after many wooden houses were damaged due to the Southern Hyogo Prefecture earthquake in 1995. Many shaking table tests of full-size wooden houses have been carried out with improvements of testing facilities and methods. On the other hand, some seismic response analysis models for wooden houses have been proposed. This review article introduces current research topics with shaking table tests and seismic response analysis of full-size wooden houses using pre- or post-analysis, and presents problems and foresights.

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Various kinds of screws are used for timber structures and they will become more and more popular fasteners in the future. In this article, I reviewed some domestic and international codes, standards and researches. Screws are dowel type fasteners such as nails, bolts, and so on. Therefore, shear performance of screw joints can be calculated from common theory. Furthermore, withdrawal strength of screw is much higher than that of other fasteners. Thus it is possible to consider the load increase as a “rope effect”, to design inclined screw joints for expected withdrawal capacity, and to use screws as timber reinforcement assemblies. Changing domestic codes, making standards more effective and evaluating long term behavior of screw joints will be future tasks.

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Several current states and future tasks for timber and wood-based materials for engineered wood products were described. Because of performance-based design codes for buildings, performance criteria for timber and wood-based materials have been established more clearly, and requirements have become more stringent. Therefore, there is a need to reconsider characteristic strength values based on ambiguous rationale. Especially, since characteristic strength values of embedment, shear and splitting have often caused problems in building design, it is necessary to promote practical and theoretical research. In addition, research on the duration of load effect and the referenced strength of wood-based structural panels requires the accumulation of steady experimental data. Progress in research on these tasks is expected.

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In order to utilize planted forests that cover 27% of the county, it would be effective to replace non-wood buildings with wood ones, because there is little expectation for an increase in new detached wood houses in the near future. As many steel and reinforced concrete buildings are usually built in fire-prevention areas, it is required to develop fire-proof or quasi-fire-proof structural glulam meeting the Building Standards Law for wood buildings in fire-prevention areas. Recently, there has been an increase in research on development of fire-resistive structural glulam thanks to the high target of self-sufficiency ratio for wood, and the Promotion Law to utilize wood for public buildings. Therefore basic methods to provide fire-resistive performance, classification and characteristics of the methods, examples of completed buildings, and future subjects and prospects are reviewed.

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Durability performance is one of the most important properties of wood-based panels used for housing construction. Estimating how long panels maintain the required performance under actual environmental conditions has been a goal of studies on the durability of wood-based materials. Although many researchers have conducted outdoor exposure tests, indoor exposure tests, and accelerated aging tests to investigate the durability of wood-based panels, there is no established method to evaluate the durability of wood-based panels under present conditions. This review article cites many references of research on the durability of wood-based panels, and introduces a summary of the durability prediction project since 2004. Then, future prospects and subjects for research on durability of wood-based panels are discussed.

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Novel developments of wood-based materials and technologies since the dawn of history have extended the base of wood science. Therefore, wood physics and wood-based material sciences retain a key role in the development of wood science. In this paper, remarkable research achievements were introduced based on gathering research presentations in both presentation categories at the meetings of the Japan Wood Research Society during the past ten years. Then the potentials of future research with high originality and creativity were discussed. Furthermore, the effect of rapid development of manufacturing technologies on the conventional approach of wood science and technology was discussed. Finally, the roles played by wood physics and wood-based material science since in a future view of manufacturing technology for wood-based materials was discussed.

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Wood-based material is constituted by bonding small pieces of processed wood, called elements, using wood adhesives. Therefore, researches on wood-based materials and wood adhesives are very closely related. In recent years, cross-laminated timber (CLT), which has been developed as a new wood-based material, is beginning to spread as a structural material in the wood industry in Europe, North America, and Japan. This paper reviews the changes in element size in the development history of wood-based materials and the relation between element type and bonding properties of wood-based materials. It also discusses the importance of research on wood adhesion for the technical development of wood-based materials through CLT.

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Europe and Japan released technical reports on the future of the pulp and paper industry. The objective was to identify the most promising breakthroughs to realize a low-carbon bio-economy. The concept for Europe was designed to revolutionize pulp and papermaking processes by innovations utilizing deep eutectic solvents, flash condensing with steam, supercritical CO₂ and renewable energy resources. A paper mill would provide a buffer and storage capacity for the electricity grid. In Japan the Nanocellulose Forum was established by the cooperation of industry, government and academia. The recent demonstration of feasibility of cellulose nanofibers production from wood pulps on a pilot scale plant should facilitate their commercial development. We aim to transform the Japanese pulp and paper industry into an integrated biomass industry which would generate high economic profits.

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As for various research works on agronomic trait improvements of major crop plants, biotechnology is also useful for wood and tree improvements such as controlling the chemical composition of wood components and the selection of elite trees. Significant recent progress in biotechnology, including molecular biology, molecular genetics, and metabolic engineering, facilitated the identification of genes contributing to wood formation and tree growth regulation. Here the current status of basic research in wood and tree biotechnology will be reviewed briefly and future prospects will be discussed.

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Biotechnological approaches, e.g. genomic selection, genetic manipulation and new breeding technology, are big tools for plant breeding, because woody plants are cultivated for longer times as compared with crops. The recent development of next generation sequencer allows opening genome information of many organisms. Genomic selection using genome information can be rapidly applied for forest tree breeding. In the future tailor-made woody plants would be bred depending on their purpose by biotechnology.

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Cellulase is an enzyme family for the production of sugars from cellulosic biomass, and the key enzyme of future biomass utilization. The history of the enzyme family goes back to the 19th century, whereas its mechanistic analysis was initiated in the latter half of the 20th century. Biochemical and structural studies have been carried out independently at that time, and static information was expanded to dynamic analysis in this century. In the present review, I would like to introduce an overview of cellulase research in addition to our recent approaches to demonstrate single molecular observations.

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It was examined in detail how the counter anion of hydrochloric, sulfuric, or hydrobromic acid acts in the reaction of a dimeric non-phenolic β-O-4 type lignin model compound, 2-(2-methoxyphenoxyl)- 1-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)propane-1,3-diol (J), or a carbohydrate model compound, methyl β-D-glucopyranoside (S), under acidic conditions. It was confirmed that the β-O-4 bond cleavage of (J) is most or least rapid in the hydrobromic or sulfuric acid system, respectively, which is in accordance with previous knowledge. It was first suggested that an unknown reaction mode for the β-O-4 bond cleavage of (J) appears in the hydrobromic acid system and that there exists the mechanism where the hydride at β-position of the benzyl cation intermediate transfers to the cation center. It was first and strongly suggested that bromide and chloride anions directly participate in the acid hydrolysis reaction of (S) and consequently affect the rate, although it has generally been believed since the middle of the 20th century that the proton activity of a reaction system is the only rate-determining parameter in acid hydrolysis of glycosides.

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Many kinds of environmental pollutants exist in our living environment, and since the diseases they cause become problematic, there is an urgent need to develop removal methods. The use of highly volatile essential oils is expected to be one such method involving emissions into the air. Hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa) leaf oil has been found to be an active removal compound that effectively removes ammonia, and sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) leaf oil has been found to be an active removal compound that effectively removes formaldehyde. Also, Todomatsu (Abies sachalinensis) leaf oil has been found to be an active removal compound that effectively removes nitrogen dioxide. γ-terpinene, myrcene and β-phellandrene have been found to be a kind of active removal component for nitrogen dioxide. Furthermore, they are understood to generate particulate matter of particle size 1000 nm or more as the removal mechanism. From the fact that a relaxing effect, etc. have also been found in the essential oils, improvement of overall air quality can be expected from their use.

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Plant secondary metabolites (specialized metabolites) have been used for natural pigments, spices, sweeteners, and medicines over a long human history. Along with recent developments of analytical instruments, our scientific knowledge of their structures, biosyntheses, and biological activities has been enlarged dramatically. Based on biological information, we have improved crops with different strategies e.g., classical breeding, mutation, transformation, and genomic selection. Here I show advanced examples of novel gene hunting by next generation sequencer (NGS) in the genomics era and metabolic engineering of useful plant metabolites on yeast platform with high productivity, leading to innovations in crop breeding and production systems for valuable compounds.

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Cultural properties which consist of wood, so-called wooden cultural properties have historical, academic, or aesthetic worth. In order to preserve wooden cultural properties, it is necessary to understand the materials and their deterioration condition, and then apply to them an appropriate conservation and restoration treatment. In conservation and restoration of wooden cultural properties, various scientific methods have been applied as well as traditional restoration techniques. This paper presents an overview of scientific investigations, conservation treatments and restorations for wooden cultural properties, and future prospects will be discussed.

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Current trends and future prospects for mushroom production in Japan are introduced. Although mushroom production has increased favorably by bed-log and sawdust-based cultivation and by reacting to a variety of consumer demands, it is faced with an unprecedented cruel status after the nuclear power plant disaster. It is expected that mushroom production has progressed to the cost-cutting system of the budget-price age, which means specialization for incubated spawn, incubated media and fruit-body formation and it will be divided into two-approaches: intensive cultivation and rough cultivation. The development of cultivation techniques and breeding which contribute to “Relief and Safety” and “Delicacy” of mushrooms and research which shows clearly that it is healthy to eat mushrooms regularly are expected to lead to new growth of mushroom production in the future.

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