LAUSR

Brazil is the largest producer and consumer of charcoal in the world, mostly consumed by the steel and iron alloy industry. To meet the industrial demand for charcoal, high quality and fast growth materials are required, between five and seven years of cutting cycle. The genus Eucalyptus have been found suitable for such use, besides presenting great adaptation to different edaphoclimatic conditions (Couto & Müller 2013), making the genus interesting for application in Brazil where there is great climatic variability. In addition, Brazil stipulated a 2020 goal of using only planted forest plants for charcoal production, in order to reduce deforestation of the native forest and to have product uniformity, since planted forests provide homogeneous materials. In Brazil, total Eucalyptus plantation area is 5.56 million hectares, with the largest planted areas in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul (IBÁ 2015). The most widespread species are E. grandis, E. saligna, E. urophylla and the hybrid E. grandis x E. urophylla. Several authors have related wood quality to charcoal quality, considering physical and WOOD QUALITY OF FIVE EUCALYPTUS SPECIES PLANTED IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL, BRAZIL FOR CHARCOAL PRODUCTION