Logo courtesy of Plumas Wood Fiber
Plumas Wood Fiber — a California-based start-up company with a goal of producing wood fiber substrate from western forest biomass — was recently awarded a grant from the Conservation X Labs Fire Grand Challenge for a pilot program to produce samples of wood fiber substrate made from western conifer wood species.
PWF will produce samples of wood fiber substrate and supply those samples free of charge to horticultural stakeholders willing to incorporate them into growth trials to validate the material for wholesale commercial use.
The goal is to commercialize excess forest biomass to help with fire management, while giving horticulture a reliable source of substrate as a substitute for peat moss.
Plumas Wood Fiber was initiated in early 2022, after Northern California wildfires in 2020 and 2021 left 2 million acres of forest burned.
Plumas Wood Fiber is currently looking for horticultural partners, including nurseries, greenhouses, researchers and potting mix manufacturers, to use the material for growth trials this summer. Those interested can contact info@plumaswoodfiber.com.
"These growth trials will validate the use of western wood species as a useful ingredient in commercial scale horticulture — for filling those thousands of pots in nurseries for producing food crops and ornamental plants," Plumas Wood Fiber said in a statement. "It just makes sense that western U.S. horticulture should use a locally produced potting substrate if possible, and we need to remove as much excess biomass from our forests as possible for fire safety."
Plumas Wood Fiber, in conjunction with Earthworm Soil Factory in Butte Valley, California, will produce wood fiber substrate from Ponderosa pine wood chips in spring 2025 at the Butte Valley facility, using a hammer mill to process chips into substrate.
The company said each partner can decide what kind of trials to do with the material, in what sort of mixtures and with what sort of plants. It only asks for a simultaneous control to compare mixes with wood fiber against mixes without.
The company said it will arrange the shipping but asks for companies to help with the cost of shipping the material to their facilities, with no cost for the material itself. The company is also asking for publishable (or at minimum preliminary) results of trials the first week of November 2025.
"Horticulture imports a great deal of its potting substrate material from Canada and overseas, but we have an overabundance of biomass from forest management projects right here in California," the company said in a statement. "It just makes sense to use a locally sourced material. But we need to test the material to be sure it works."
Plumas Wood Fiber has partnered with Brian E. Jackson of North Carolina State University, who leads the Wood Substrates Lab, to do analytic testing of western wood species for the purpose. The company said "those analytic results are positive."
"Now it's time for boots-on-the-ground growth trials by western horticultural stakeholders to validate the materials," the company said in a statement. "Successful growth trials will lead to Plumas Wood Fiber developing a large-scale industrial facility to produce the material by the truck load for use in wholesale commercial horticulture. The goal is to serve the needs of horticulture and to help with the need to remove excess forest biomass from western forests for fire safety."
Plumas Wood Fiber is supported by grants from Cal Fire Business and Workforce Development, Plumas County Fire Safe Council and USDA Forest Service Wood Innovations.
Conservation X Labs is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, ESRI, The Coca-Cola Foundation and others.
Conservation X Labs conducts numerous sustainability grant programs, with the goal of preventing the next mass extinction. One of these programs is the Fire Grand Challenge, in which 12 finalists are chosen to demonstrate innovative ways to deal with wildfire in western North American Forests.
Plumas Wood Fiber, in conjunction with Earthworm Soil Factory, was chosen as one of the 12 finalists for the Fire Grand Challenge.
The challenge awards $50,000 to each of the finalists in order to conduct a pilot project to demonstrate the validity and utility of the wildfire innovation they have developed, with the goal of scaling the project to commercial development for useful deployment to help deal with the problem.
Grand prizes will be awarded to three of the finalists in January 2026.