Winter, and a bit of snow cover has provided a key for reseeding of some of the more hardy species in harvested coupes across Victoria’s State forests.
VicForests spreads hundreds of millions of eucalyptus seeds across the forests each year to regrow areas that have been harvested to supply wood to Victoria’s timber industry.
Lachlan Spencer, VicForests general manager, Stakeholders and Planning said that helicopters aerially spread seeds over larger areas and smaller areas were sown by hand.
Mr Spencer said GPS gave a higher chance of a successful regeneration but in areas smaller than five hectares it was more accurate to sow by hand.
Coupes are burnt following harvesting to give the seeds the best possible chance to grow.
“The burns mimic the process of nature and create a natural ash bed to germinate the seeds,” Mr Spencer said.
“Some species, such as the Alpine Ash, are sown just before or in the snow as they require natural winter conditions in order to germinate,” he said.
VicForests has 17 tonnes of seed in storage and just one kilogram of seed contains 250,000 potential trees. VicForests has spread about 377 million seeds across 2273 hectares this year.
Mr Spender said the process replicated nature.
“It is a survival of the fittest process whereby natural selection occurs and of the 200,000 seeds sown per hectare only 10,000 seedlings might germinate.
“In another 50 to 60 years there will be around 300 trees per hectare left as part of the growing forest,” he said.
