Resistance of wood treated with guayule resin 89/47 against Reticulitermes lucifugus in accordance with CEN EN 117 (with some modifications)

The resin 89/47 seems to be resistant to Reticolitermes lucifugus. This result comes out from a biological test carried out on five treated wood blocks with a mean retention of 242 g/m2 and a standard deviation of 14,3 g/m2. The biological test was carried out in accordance with CEN EN 117 with some modifications. The criteria of validity ofstandard has not respected, in fact at end of test all the flasks did not have 50 % alive worker, only one presented 3 workers still living. Nevertheless, the test had had completely different behavior between treated and untreated samples: In all treated specimens the termites died on 23th March after few weeks from beginning, instead it was observed on the reference control living termites until 27th April, before the end of test. On the basis of my expertise I affirm that the treated and untreated showed a different behavior due to the activity of resin against termites. Asjustification of death of all termitesin non-treated specimensit certainly depends on the termites species that showed a lot of time problems to resists in laboratory condition.