Pine seedlings will be planted in 2800 hectares of State-owned plantations near Oberon, Bathurst and Orange during the Forestry Corporation of NSW’s annual winter planting program, which started this week. Source: Timberbiz
Forestry Corporation of NSW’s Regional Manager Jason Molkentin said three crews would be planting seedlings across the region until August.
“Each winter we re-establish around 8500 hectares of pine plantations across NSW and about 30 per cent of these are in the Central West, mainly around Oberon,” Jason said.
“Over the next three months, we’ll have crews hand planting seedlings across the region to re-establish the plantations well ahead of the drier summer months.
“An experienced planter can get about 2000 seedlings into the ground in one day and we expect to plant a total of 3.1 million seedlings in the Central West before the spring.
“We plant pine seedlings during winter because they are dormant during the cooler months, which means we can transport the seedlings more easily and get them in the ground in time for their spring growth period.
“The ground in each plantation has been carefully prepared, cultivated and treated with herbicide for weed control to give the seedlings the best start possible.
“Forestry Corporation has around 200,000 hectares of pine plantations in NSW. The Central West is the hub of our Northern Softwoods region, which extends to the Queensland border and delivered more than $60 million of revenue last year.”
