Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been identified as a potential analytical method that might improve monitoring of sapstain control chemicals application in sawmills. The main benefit from use of this technique would be the ability to respond immediately to application problems identified. Based on preliminary laboratory data Bomem Inc., Forintek Canada Corp. (FCC) and the Pacific Forestry Centre (PFC) agreed to undertake research aimed at the development of FTIR for commercial application in sawmills. The first stage in this project was to validate the FTIR method in the laboratory. A protocol was agreed upon for a test which would determine the precision of the FTIR retention predictions on a variety of wood surfaces. Wood strips of rough, planed and intermediate surface texture were prepared. At FCC a technique was devised by which the wood strips were treated with known amounts of DDAC. Intermediate textured replicate samples were treated to known retentions of DDAC and sent to PFC to use in calibrating the FTIR instrument. Additionally, 20 replicates of each surface texture were treated with random amounts of DDAC over the range 0 - 200ug/cm squared. These "unknowns" were also sent to PFC for analyses by FTIR and prediction of DDAC retentions. Although correlation between actual and predicted DDAC retentions was linear within a particular surface texture, results show a mean difference or error between the actual (weight uptake) and FTIR determinations of DDAC retentions of 46% (standard deviation 28%). Therefore, overall, the FTIR analytical method gave unsatisfactory results. Our conclusion is that, based on the current calibration, the FTIR analytical method is not sufficiently accurate for general sawmill application. The surface texture of the wood being scanned significantly affected the retention of DDAC as determined by FTIR and corrections for surface texture would need to be incorporated into the software if further development was to be considered. Additionally, other variables than surface texture (e.g. formulation additives) may influence analytical results and were not considered in this study.