Wood packaging compliance works better as a field-recording problem than as an automated pass or fail test. A receiving system can capture what a person observes on a pallet. It cannot decide whether that pallet satisfies 7 CFR 319.40-3, and no field list changes that.

The distinction matters because the regulation does not hand a warehouse a checklist that maps to a database column. It sets conditions on importation, and several of those conditions rest on determinations that belong to APHIS or to an inspector. A system that stores observations and a system that issues verdicts are different systems. Only the first one is honest about what it knows.

Fields a receiving system can record

The first field is material type. The regulation defines bark chips as bark fragments broken or shredded from log or branch surfaces (7 CFR 319.40-1), and it treats wood packaging material as a category with its own conditions under 7 CFR 319.40-3.…