| Timber Plantation |
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You don't have to be Einstein to know that the world's resources of timber are finite. Too often we hear horror stories from home and abroad of large scale land clearing and timber felling through drastic and unsustainable practices. Over the last 50 years little thought has gone into the health of the planet and in particular, how our future generations will cope with the results of this greed. It is now pleasing to see the groundswell of support for community based organizations such as Landcare and Greening Australia. Mixed-Species Timber Plantations are now appearing all over the country, that are designed to be selectively harvested(as opposed to clear felled), and mixing the variety will aid bio-diversity. In Dec 2000, at Kin Kin in the Noosa hinterland, we began our own pilot plantation of Rainforest/cabinet timbers covering 2 hectares. All going well (and the results thus far are very promising) this will increase substantially over the ensuing years. Stage 2 was planted in late 2004 and completely hardwood species (planted furhter up the hill as nature would have done it!) and we are grateful to the Noosa & District Landcare group for their supply of 2000 free Eucalyptus Cloeziana (Gympie Messmate) seedlings! These trees are now growing beautifully and are over 6 meters tall, photos to come! 
For more pictures please visit our Gallery. Planting Method
Regular practice uses 1600 stems per hectare(SPH) to achieve an eventual 200 SPH at harvestable size. Despite natural attrition , this did seem like a waste of plants and money so we decided to use a fast growing legume(nitrogen producer) Pidgeon Pea,every second tree.The added advantage of this is that PP provided valuable cover for young rainforest trees not used to growing in open fields AND when it dies off in 7 years it creates valuable access for thinning and harvesting. So now we have 800SPH to be eventually reduced to 200. Thinning is something to be considered and one of the more difficult jobs with mixed species plantations as it can be difficult to chose which tree to keep when faced with a large tree of moderate value,growing beside a small tree of potentially high value.By grouping our 800SPH into 200 groups of 4 stems of the same species it becomes extremely easy when thinning to chose the best tree of 4. So , in groups of 4, our species where then planted in North/South rows(same as the pidgeon Pea) in groups of fast and slow growing .Planting in North/South rows maximizes coverage of the winter sun. |
At some stage hopefully sooner than later, this tree's value will be seen more as a living breathing organism than as a pile of woodchips or a coffee table. The more plantation grown timber produced, the less pressure there will be on natural ecosystems to provide our timber needs.
There are a number of methods being used to plant timber plantations and we have used ideas from some of these plus a few of our own. Site preparation is important and we were lucky enough to get our hands on 300+m3 of Macadamia mulch, from a neighboring farm, which has proven vital in the coastal sandy soils at Kin Kin.