Forestneeds

As Sequoia sempervirens, Thuja plicata and similar durable stable lightweight timber markets experience rising demand with tightened availability, small and medium forest growers are showing renewed interest. There is a tendency for promotors and enthusiasts to gloss over, downplay, ignore or dismiss the risks. On optimal sites each single risk may be minimal; but several such risks put together may add up to a loss of several percent of the potential crop, or potential profit. On a less than optimal site trying to grow Sequoia may be a liability. Of 10,000 acres of Sequoia planted in New Zealand around 1% established. This post touches on the problems that I’ve personally come across, and my own photos illustrate the points. (more…)

When Cupressus macrocarpa was first introduced into New Zealand it was used extensively in farm shelterbelts. Despite the lack of silvaculture, these belts produces good amounts of clear timber, even from the top logs. As high quality indigenous

timber resources progressively became depleted or locked up in nature reserves, more interest was given to growing plantations of fast growing exotics, such as macrocarpa, to replace indigenous species in the timber market. While untended shelterbelts could readily produce a relatively high percentage of clear timber, purpose planted plantations present a their own set of problems.

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In 1927 a school horticultural teaching assistant left a lasting legacy at Mimi school in coastal North Taranaki, New Zealand. For over 60 years school children watched a stand of Monterey cypress grow next to the school yard. When in 1994 the School board had the trees felled to cash in the value of the logs, Jim Phillips collected seed from what he considered to be the best tree in the stand. He sowed the seed and planted the seedlings on a roadside slip on his farm. Ten years after planting the trees are up to 20m high
and 33cm dbh.
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