The most popular and economical methods are (1) kiln seasoning and (2) air seasoning or air drying. The former is done in an enclosed chamber in which temperature, humidity and circulation of air can be controlled to ensure a gradual removal of moisture. Humidity is controlled by water sprays or steam jets. Circulation of air is achieved via reversible fans inside the chamber. Starting with low temperature and high humidity, the conditions inside the chamber are gradually changed to low humidity and high temperature and the process of seasoning is continued until the required moisture content of the material is attained.

Air drying of green timber is done in the open: the timber is stacked under cover in a way that enables free air to pass through the stack. Precautions need to be taken to avoid defects: material above 10 cm in thickness must be air dried first to bring down the moisture content to about the fibre saturation point. For a material of similar thickness and initial moisture content, air seasoning takes longer than kiln seasoning. Kiln seasoning requires skilled operations and careful supervision, whilst air drying and higher cost, air seasoning does not require much skill and supervision and is cheaper in spite of locked up capital in the wood stacked for long periods.

Rubberwood is found to be amenable to extremely rapid movement in many other species under the same conditions. Planks about 25 mm thickness take about 55 to 60 days in air drying while only about 6 to 7 days in kiln drying. In solar kilns drying time is about 15 days for the same material.