laboratory conductivity cell and an especially designed frame were used (Inalbon and Zanuttini 2008). In the
procedure, the wood slice is mounted to the frame to keep it flat and equidistant from the electrodes. Both faces of
the slice are in contact with the solution. The specific conductivity of the wood is calculated considering slice
thickness and electrical resistance in a series circuit with the electrical resistance of the solution existing between
electrodes. Wood slices cut in a radial direction allowed the determination of the specific conductivity in the
tangential direction and viceversa. In this way, ECCSA was determined for each slice and this value was related to
its position considering the original outer face of the blocks. Both face of three blocks were analyzed for each
treatment, thus is each capillary profile was determined six times to counteract the wood variability.
2.5 Statistical analysis
Mean and standard deviation were calculated from data obtained for each treatment. Results were analyzed by an
oneway ANOVA and means of all variables were contrasted by Tukey’s test. Data on enzyme activity were
analysed by the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test (P < 0.05).
3. Results and Discussion
Eucalyptus grandis wood chips and blocks were inoculated axenically with each of the three fungi tested.
Although all of them colonized the wood after 30 days of incubation to different extension compared to an uninoculated
control, covering their surfaces by velvet-like mycelium areas, it was more notorious on wood treated
with G. subargentea LPSC 436 (figure 2). Several parameters related to the modification of E. grandis wood by
each fungus, including WSF, are shown in Table 2.
Concomitantly with fungal growth, wood dry mass was reduced, though it was less than 3%, being the fungus G.
subvermispora FBCC 313 which caused the lower mass loss compared to the others one (Tukey’s test, P < 0.05).
This mass loss is relatively low, which is favorable because it does not influence the overall performance of the
process. Ash content was not modified by the treatments.