ANNUAL REPORT 09/10 - Forest and Wood Products Australia

Developing tools to increase the productivity
and returns from private forests
Increasing the forest management skills of private forest
growers will make them more profi table and productive
and secure an increased material supply for industry.
Private landholders frequently combine grazing with the
irregular harvesting of their Spotted Gum (Corymbia
citriodora subsp. variegata, C. citriodora subsp. citriodora
and C. henryi) dominant forests. In southern Queensland
and northern NSW this forestry is an important part of the
hardwood timber industry. However, productivity is often
well below what could be achieved. To assist managers
improve forest productivity and fi nancial returns the
project has developed:
A set of Spotted Gum specifi c silvicultural guidelines
for timber production on private land that cover both
silvicultural treatment and harvesting.
OPERATIONS | 33
The Spotted Gum Productivity Assessment Tool
(SPAT), a simple decision-support computer program
that allows an estimation of:
1 Tree growth productivity on specifi c sites.
2 Pasture development and expected livestock
carrying capacity under a range of tree stockings.
3 Above-ground tree biomass and carbon stored
in trees.
A series of experiments in Spotted Gum forests on
private lands to quantify growth and provide measures
of the effect of different agro-forestry regimes.
The outcomes of this project will enable private native
forest growers to maximise site productivity and stabilise
recurring farm income streams through the production of
higher-value native hardwoods for supply to the current
processing sector.
PNC075-0708 Tree growth relationships and silvicultural
tools to assist stand management in private native Spotted
Gum dominant forests in Queensland and northern New
South Wales.
Developing new technology to increase
the accuracy and reduce the cost of forest
inventories
Providing industry with new methods of updating forest
inventories has the potential to reduce their current
costs by up to 90%.
Updating forest inventories of P. radiata plantations can
be very expensive, with traditional methods costing from
$25 to $40 per hectare. However LiDAR (Airborne Laser
Scanner) data combined with multi-wavelength digital
imagery is predicted to produce accurate estimates of
tree height, stem density, basal area, forest volume and
biomass at a cost of around $2 to $4 per hectare.
This project assessed the effectiveness of LiDAR and
digital imagery technology in NSW radiata plantations,
and compared them with current ground-based sampling
methods. The fi nal report will provide industry specifi c
guidelines and recommendations on how data should
be analysed and interpreted by plantation managers
through the modifi cation of existing forest management
systems, as well as which LiDAR, camera and software
technologies are most suitable for local conditions.
PNC058-0809 Adoption of new airborne technologies for
improving effi ciencies and accuracy of estimating standing
volume and yield modelling in Pinus radiata plantations.
FWPA ANNUAL REPORT 09/10