| Why
establish forest plantings on your property?
You may wish to make more money or to set yourself
up with a nest egg for your retirement or just to avoid handing so much
of your income to the Taxation Commissioner. You may have a commitment
to the environment or care about the health of the planet we hand on to
our children. Perhaps you like the idea of planting and caring for trees
from which fine timber products will be made. These are a few of the good
reasons for looking carefully at what farm forestry can offer. Incidentally
farm forestry does not necessarily mean hectare upon hectare of pine trees,
it can mean well managed windbreaks, woodlots, or timber belts of
native species too.
The big picture
Although 40% of the World’s plantation timber
is of Eucalyptus species, Australia imports some $2 Billion worth of wood-derived
products annually. We receive some $700 Million for the export of the chipping
of massive areas of native forest. This leaves a huge import replacement
opportunity, mainly in the production of good sawlogs for high quality
timber. The World outlook to the year 2015 is for timber prices to continue
to grow faster than food commodity prices, making wood a more profitable
large scale crop to grow than most others in higher rainfall areas. It
already comfortably outstrips the profitability of grazing in the Hills.
Property Improvement
Your property can look better, have lower wind
speeds, lower lambing losses, grow better fruit, be more productive and
profitable, have less erosion, less salinity problems, more biodiversity
with its accompanying ecological stability, boast a more diverse income
base and lower exposure to the risks posed by nature and the vagaries of
the market place. It is widely accepted that you can have 15% of the property
under trees without losing production from the existing enterprises; the
forest products are an added bonus.
Property values are generally 15% higher for
properties with well designed tree plantings than for similar properties
with no trees.
Income
In the Adelaide Hills it is quite reasonable
to expect returns equating to almost $1000 per hectare of forest per year.
Different wood products offer vastly different levels of income and demand
varying amounts of skill and effort. Firewood may be worth $15 per tonne
in the standing tree or $70 sawn on farm and a yield of some 8 tonnes per
year should be achievable per hectare providing a total profit of up to
$1400 per hectare in the 10 year span to first harvest. However if the
land owner sawed the timber with uncosted labour the ‘profit’ may
be more like $3500 per hectare.
Sawlogs (for timber) are measured by volume rather
than by weight and can command over $70 per cubic metre. For the 550cubic
metres of Pinus radiata wood which may be produced off a hectare in 25
years, a profit of $30,000 is possible.
One can only salivate over stories from New Zealand
where a market for very high quality timber has been developed (most of
our quality softwood comes from NZ) and a recent example of a net income
off 2 hectares of pine of $80,000.
Tax
For people who have an income which attracts
substantial tax, forestry may be of particular interest because of its
ability to absorb income at a time when you are earning well, so minimising
tax payable, and then to provide you with a saleable asset and an income
stream later on.
You should be able to claim deductions for interest
on money borrowed to establish the forest planting, all costs of maintenance
and repairs, depreciation of equipment, cost of trees, any special fencing
to exclude pests which may degrade the land, fencing to land classes (according
to a plan approved by Primary Industries SA) or for the prevention of land
degradation…eg fencing off gullies etc, and also costs of water conservation
works or reticulation.
Self Sufficiency
The average family which keeps itself warm with
wood in winter uses over 3 tonnes per year. Those who cook and produce
their own hot water use more; so it is sensible to have at least a hectare
of woodlot for your own consumption.
At The Food Forest we warm ourselves with wood
and have also been able to build a log wall for our potting shed, construct
a brush fence and out door benches and we’ve had some beautiful wooden
craft items turned from our trees. Cut foliage is used for decoration,
we devour huge quantities of honey made by our bees and we thoroughly appreciate
the pest control efforts of the small birds and predatory wasps which nest
and live in our areas of native trees. Recently we have started to thin
our little Canary Island Pine forest for pole timber. Poplars give us wonderful
knocking poles for our Pistachio and Pecan nuts and the Stone Pines are
already producing pine nuts for the Mediterranean recipes to which we are
addicted.
This is after only 10 years…give us another 20
and we’ll be milling the finest Canary Island Pine sawlogs, making furniture
from giant bamboo and cutting cork for our own wine; in yet another 20
it will be time to harvest the oaks…or should we leave them for our grandchildren?
Forestry is a wonderful way of transferring real
riches to the next generation and whilst the best response to the question
‘When is the best time to plant a forest?’ is ‘Thirty years ago’ the next
best answer is ‘Right now’…we and our kids never get any younger.
The Environment
85% of the Earth’s surface used to be clothed
by trees. Since the removal of this protection we have seen stunning amounts
of erosion, disastrous developments of dryland salinity, the tripling of
Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the extinction of thousands of
species, extraordinary degradation and pollution of fresh and ocean waters
and changes to rainfall patterns, all in the name of progress …..and yet
more people live in disempowerment, poverty and malnutrition than ever
before; now they can’t even be poor in the shade!
Putting the trees back is vital to the restoration
of the Planet’s balance and farm forestry is probably the best way of doing
it. So let’s get on with it.
What species should you plant?
The first question must be ‘What grows on your
land now and what used to grow there before it was developed?’ The original
vegetation will tell us about the basic climate and soil and the current
crops will give clues as to any major modifications which have resulted
from farming eg salting, increased Phosphorous levels, lower soil pH or
poorer drainage.
Staff from Primary Industries SA have used such
information to classify land in the Hills and Peter Bulman’s excellent
book ‘Farm Trees for the Mount Lofty Ranges’ uses those classifications
to suggest which species will do well on your property. It should be read
thoroughly by anyone contemplating forest plantings.
The basic types of site considered are: Tall
Stringybark, Short Stringybark, Tall Manna Gum, Red Gum, Red Gum with poor
drainage, Pink Gum, SA Blue Gum, Peppermint Box, Mallee and Saline.
Having found your site types (and you may need
to refer to someone with knowledge of native vegetation and/or one of the
books about what grew where, eg.‘The Native Forest and Woodland Vegetation
of SA’ SA Dept Woods and Forests) you’ll be presented with a list of potential
species for the various parts of your place. Soil tests for structure,
profile, fertility and pH will be worthwhile if a substantial planting
is to be established.
Now comes the decision about what purposes the
trees will serve or products you are interested in. Each of the hundreds
of potential species has its own strengths and weaknesses, eg. tolerance
to fire, salinity or waterlogging, and its particular uses, eg sawlogs,
windbreaks, fodder, oil, Christmas trees, craft wood, firewood etc.
If you had a patch of land which used to carry
tall Stringybark and some poorly drained flats with Red Gum you may choose
to put in a timber lot of Pinus radiata for the production of high quality
sawlogs on the slopes and to revegetate the flats with a mixture of Red
Gum and River Oak (Casuarina cunninghamiana) both of which produce sawlogs,
excellent firewood, craftwood and enjoy an occasional inundation. Alternatively
you may go for
Spotted Gum (Eucalyptus maculata) on the slopes
for hardwood sawlogs, honey and habitat and something quite different on
the flats too. The choices are numerous.
You may be preoccupied with making money or perhaps
doing the best for the environment. If you’re clever you may be able to
do both with an elegant farm forestry design which incorporates windbreaks,
biodiversity plantings, woodlots and timberbelts.
On our place we recently planted a ‘floodable
forest’ for when the Gawler River gets a bit excited. Casuarina cunninghamiana,
naturally tall and straight, is alternated with the local Broughton Willow
(Acacia salicina) which is usually pretty crooked but will be forced to
grow up straight, between the casuarinas; it produces a stunning timber
very like Blackwood. Both species will send taproots down to the aquifer
associated with the river, drought-proofing themselves in what is a fairly
dry environment.
Our site is a bit peculiar because of flooding
but yours may have dairy or pig effluent to deal with in which case you
may try Red Gum or Flooded Gum (Eucalyptus grandis) for a woodlot or even
some non-running bamboo.
Your geographic location may limit your options
in that too great a distance from a preserving plant may take out poles
as a potential product, whilst distance from a city may eliminate firewood.
There is no pulp mill within transport range of the Hills.
The size of your plantings can also be critical.
A firewood lot yielding less than 100 tonnes is unlikely to be of interest
to a firewood contractor. Talk to potential buyers before planting. In
some cases contracts can be signed with buyers and sometimes they provide
an advisory service to growers.
Layout and Establishment
You need a clear idea of the total forest system
you’re aiming to create including what happens at different ages and how
the forest relates to the rest of the property.
I would like to see some forests in the Hills
run soft-footed geese and alpacas on pastures between developing alternate
rows of pines and oaks; they would do the weeding and although grazing
numbers would fall somewhat as the pines took more light, the deciduous
nature of oaks and high pruning of the pines would keep the pastures alive.
The pines would be thinned for poles and eventually felled for high value
saw logs, by which time the oaks would have developed into a nice straight-trunked
trees producing acorns for the grazers. Many years later maybe the oaks
could be felled. This would be a sustainable forest. In the drier parts
of the Hills tough fodder trees like Carobs, Saltbush and Tagasaste will
have a role.
Having worked out the objectives of your
planting the number of trees per hectare and therefore the spacing of the
trees and the rows is still a major decision. A thinning regime can be
worked out in advance, eg. ‘In this timber lot at 4 years of age
we’ll slash down the trees with no vigour and poor form and leave them
to rot down. We’ll thin the poorer trees for poles at 11 years; at 22 years
we’ll cut the poorer trees and take out alternate rows for sawlogs and
leave just a percentage to go through to large sawlogs at 35’….there are
many variations on that theme and if you had elected to grow trees for
pulp you probably wouldn’t bother to thin at all. If your aim is to integrate
the agricultural production of the place with growing timber (agroforestry)
your row spacings may be very wide to allow for light to get to the pasture
between the trees; this is less of an issue if you choose deciduous trees
like Honey Locust, Black Walnut or Oaks.
There are some reasonably standard layouts for
plantings aimed at different forms of production, which are also explained
well in Peter Bulman’s book.
Trees should be ordered from a recognised forestry
nursery as there is a steady improvement in performance of selected cultivars.
They should have a weed free planting site waiting for them which has been
ripped and mounded. There are a number of contractors in the Hills who
plant trees very economically. Fertiliser would be added if required but
don’t be too terrified…for their size timber trees need remarkably little
fertilizer.
In some cases you may elect to use tree guards
for frost or pest control but rabbit and hare populations should be at
low densities and a control program is always best before the trees arrive
rather than after they have been eaten off.
Fencing must effectively exclude sheep, cattle
and other grazing animals. If kangaroos and wallabies can access the trees
a mixture of egg whites and water-based paint applied to the trees has
been a successful deterrent.
In undulating country the ripping should be on
the contour and in the most extreme slopes up and down the hill.
Weeds are the great enemy of young trees and
everything from, granular herbicides to weeder geese and flame throwers
to straw mulch has been used to reduce competition for water, nutrients
and light. Some hand watering or in special circumstances irrigation may
be needed to get the trees established. Remember they come from the nursery
with a root system which is often too small for the top growth in a ‘wild’
situation. If possible time your planting so that the young trees get natural
rainfall for some months after planting.
Silviculture - producing quality products
Form pruning is done in the tree’s younger years
to eliminate double growing tips and odd shapes and to concentrate growth
in a single upright stem. Later you may undertake ‘lift pruning’ where
you prune off side branches to eliminate knots in the wood. The wood laid
down after lift pruning is knot free ‘clear wood’ of premium value. Over
several ‘lifts’ the stem is free of branches to a height of 6 metres, the
length of a standard sawlog. There are many types of equipment to make
this job easy.
When it comes to harvesting the whole operation
can be done by contractors or you may elect to do the thinning harvest
yourself and get contractors in for the main operation.
Processing may be undertaken on-farm or at a
sawmill. Whilst on-farm milling may take more organisation and produce
a slightly less precise product it may also make a huge difference to profitability,
especially if you also take responsibility for selling or making the wood
into something (a difference from $70 to $400 per cubic metre for felling,
sawing and curing). There are now many types of small scale or transportable
mills, kilns and also mechanical felling aids that can be attached to conventional
farm tractors. On-farm milling contractors in the Hills include Roger
Kowald at Mt Torrens. If you want to produce and market posts they can
be pressure impregnated with Copper Chrome Arsenate by Recut industries
at Monarto. Needless to say the boom in the grape industry has been fortuitous
for the producers of posts.
Help in SA
Primary Industries SA has a substantial commitment
to developing Farm Forestry in the Hills and have appointed an experienced
forester, Martyn England, to provide advice to landholders interested in
establishing plantings. Martyn also helps to coordinate a network
of growers who share information and other resources. 'The Forest Grower'
is an excellent journal which covers all of Southern Australia and keeps
forest growers up to date with prices, new technology and industry developments.Contact
Martyn England of Rural Solutions on 08 8552 7788 or 0427 971 163 or Geoff
Hodgson on 8391 7510.
Seeing is believing
A number of trials have been established in the
Hills. Particularly significant ones are at Gumeracha and in the Meadows
area. Check them or other existing plantings in your area before taking
the plunge.
Courses and conferences
A short course on Farm Forestry will usually
take place in June covering species selection, forest systems and layouts,
silviculture, harvesting curing and milling, yields and financial analyses,
tree establishment and ‘best bets’ for the Hills. Tutors in the past have
been Martyn England, Farm Forestry Development Officer PIRSA; Ian Nuberg,
Lecturer in Agroforestry at the University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy Campus;
Neville Bonney of Greening Australia; Glenn Christie, Revegetation Consultant
and Graham Brookman, Property Planner. It includes tours of top farm
forestry developments in the Hills. Details are available from Annemarie
Brookman 08 85 226 450.
Publications on Farm Forestry
Information Packs on Farm Forestry in SA are
available. Prepared by Martyn England they contain well illustrated fact
sheets on tree establishment woodlots, pruning, firewood, fire protection
and wide spaced agroforestry. Ph Martyn on (08) 8552 7788
Farm Trees for the Adelaide Hills
Comprehensive manual. Indispensable. Relevant
to the whole of SA.
Deciding on Farm Forestry?
Good information on costings, milling,
government regulations and useful references.
visit:www.dse.vic.gov.au
Also: ‘Agroforestry in Australia and New Zealand’,
Reid;& ‘Growing Carobs In Australia’, Esbenshade(old, maybe only in
libraries); ‘Agroforestry - trees for productive farming’, Race; ‘Design
Principles for farm forestry’, RIRDC (both from Land Links 1800 645
051); ‘Agroforestry’, Reid and Stewart; ‘Bamboo Rediscovered’,
Cusack; ‘Tree Crops - a permanent agriculture’, Smith; ‘Economic
Native Trees and Shrubs for SA’, Neville Bonney (State Tree Centre).
‘Farm Forestry Clearwood Production’, Agriculture Vic; ‘Permaculture
Plants’, Nugent.
Updated: 08/03
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