Diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared (DRIFT) spectroscopy was used to differentiate coniferous woods by species. Species mixtures studied were SPF (composed of white spruce [Picea glauca Voss], Engelmann spruce [Picea engelmannii Parry], lodgepole pine [Pinus contorta Dougl.] and subalpine fir [Abies lasiocarpa Nutt.]) and HEM/FIR (composed of western hemlock [Tsuga heterophylla Sarg.], amabilis fir [Abies amabilis Dougl.] and Sitka spruce [Picea sitchensis Carr.]). DRIFT spectra of the green wood samples were used in SIMCA (simple modeling of class analogy) pattern recognition to differentiate species. This approach was able to classify SPF with 90% accuracy when all samples were identified, and 94% accuracy when poorly classified samples were eliminated. For the HEM/FIR group, the method was able to classify all samples with 81% accuracy, and up to 99% accuracy when poorly classified samples were eliminated
