Heat treatment IPPC-ISPM 15

The company BERY DŘEVOVÝROBA s.r.o. owns a certificate allowing to heat-treat the wooden material, issued by The Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic.
We currently own two drying chambers.

In the frame of the International Plant Protection Convention by FAO, there were accepted International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures no. 15 (ISPM15). There are described manufacturing processes, methods and requirements regarding regulation of wooden packaging material in international busines, so that the risk of infection and spread of quarantine harmful organisms. Approved phytosanitary measures that significantly decreases the risk of infection and spread of harmful organisms in wooden packaging lay in the debarking of wood (with bark restriction regulations) and use of approved treatment.

Use of debarked wood

Regardless of the type of used treatment, the packaging material has to be produced from debarked wood.

According to the standards, there may stay whatever number of visually departed and clearly distinct small pieces of bark, if they are:

not wider than 3 cm (regardless the length) or
wider than 3 cm with a total area of an individual bark piece smaller than 50 cm².

Because debarking is already taken for granted, there is no more visualised the code “DB”, or debarked on the new marks.

Heat treatment (HT)

HT ia short for heat treatment. Wooden packaging material has to be heated in a special technological process suitable from the viewpoint of used temperature, as well as the viewpoint of the heating time, when the minimum temperature of 56°C will be reached for the minimum time of 30 minutes continuously in the whole wood profile (including the core). This combination has been proved as lethal for most of the harmful organisms and at the same time this treatment is economically acceptable.

The mark and its use

The mark proves that the wooden packaging material was subjected to approved phytosanitary treatment in accordance with this standard and includes the following parts:

symbol
country code (XX)
manufacturer / treatment provider code (000)
treatment code using an appropriate abbreviation (HT or MB) (YY)

Note: Methyl bromide treatment – MB is restricted in the Czech Republic. It is so-called fumigation or treatment with a chemical agent in a gas form.

(IPPC = International Plant Protection Convention)

Kiln drying ( KD )

It is a process by which the wood is dried in a closed chamber using controlled temperature and/or humidity to achieve required humidity of wood. By these means, the redundant humidity – water is removed from the wood. The weight of wood is decreased, it’s workability is improving, and its tendency to dry out is decreasing. At the same time, by the low humidity, the wood is protected against wood-destroying fungus and moulds. Kiln drying is more time-consuming and more expensive than heat treatment IPPC according to ISPM 15. The drying takes several days depending on the required percentage of humidity.

Heat treatment IPPC is not the same thing as kiln drying to a requested humidity. There is not such humidity loss during treatment according to ISPM 15.

In December 2017 was introduced a novelization of law No. 326/2004 Sb., about phytosanitary care, as later amended. The law novelization (No. 299/2017 Sb.) came into effect on 1^st December 2017 and it brought some significant changes with it, including in the field of registration of subjects operating equipment for pest control (further referred to as “kiln-drying”) and wooden packaging material manufacturers. The essential change, that has a direct impact on registered subjects operation, is that validity of all the certificates, issued earlier by the State Phytosanitary Administration or The Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic up until 30^th November 2017 was terminated on 31^st December 2018 (end of transitional period) !!!

The certificate validity is now only 2 years.

Some of the original certificates had unlimited validity.

Therefore we warn of the invalid (fake) certificates,

because of which an exporter into the states out of EU can get in serious trouble

in case of infection with the alive harmful organisms.

Links:

Official sites of The Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic

http://eagri.cz/public/web/ukzuz/portal/

FAO ISPM 15 2009

http://eagri.cz/public/web/ukzuz/legislativa/ispm/ispm-15.html

Guide through the implementation of ISPM 15 and some countries’ import requirements

http://eagri.cz/public/web/ukzuz/portal/dovoz-vyvoz/dreveny-obalovy-material/informace-k-susarnam/pruvodce-implementaci-IPSM15.html