Citación
Aliaño-González, M.J.; Gabaston, J.; Ortiz-Somovilla, V.; Cantos-Villar, E. Wood Waste from Fruit Trees: Biomolecules and Their Applications in Agri-Food Industry. Biomolecules 2022, 12, 238. https:// doi.org/10.3390/biom12020238
Abstract
In the European Union (EU), a total of 11,301,345 hectares are dedicated to the cultivation of fruit trees, mainly olive orchards, grapevines, nut trees (almond, walnut, chestnut, hazelnut, and pistachio), apple and pear trees, stone fruit trees (peach, nectarine, apricot, cherry, and plum), and citrus fruit trees (orange, clementine, satsuma, mandarin, lemon, grapefruit, and pomelo). Pruning
these trees, together with plantation removal to a lesser extent, produces a huge amount of wood waste. A theoretical calculation of the wood waste in the European Union estimates approximately 2 and 25 million tons from wood plantation removal and pruning, respectively, per year. This wood waste is usually destroyed by in-field burning or crushing into the soil, which result in no direct economic benefits. However, wood from tree pruning, which is enriched in high added-value molecules, offers a wide spectrum of possibilities for its valorization.