To safely dry wood by surely preventing its ignition by irradiating each wood with a microwave under optimum conditions to dry it in a short time while a crack is prevented from being generated.

A method for drying wood is a method for drying the wood 1 by irradiating it with the microwave. A weight of the wood 1 to be dried is detected at specified time intervals. Drying is carried out while average output of the microwave is controlled by either or both of the weight of the wood 1 and a weight decrease rate wherein the weight of the wood 1 changes, or drying is ended by stopping the output of the microwave.