Collapse and huge moisture content（MC）differences among boards are the main defects during Eucalypt lumber air drying.Therefore,a drying strategy,including pre-steaming before kiln drying and final conditioning after kiln drying,was developed by the authors with the intent to improve lumber drying quality.An experiment on Eucalyptus camaldulensis lumber with thickness of 30 mm showed the following:pre-steaming could help lumber collapse recover effectively and decrease casehardening significantly;mean MC decreased from 25.61% to 11.72% during a 5 day drying period;both a 3-hour steaming and 24-hour wet-air conditioning could decrease MC gradient and release residual plastic set,while the effects of the latter were better;and the drying quality in this test met the demands of the second quality level in national standard GB/T 6491-1999.