Pines grow as well on Coast as in N.I.-Forest Service

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33154, 19 February 1973, Page 16

Pines grow as well on Coast as in N.I.-Forest Service

Twenty-year-old pine plantations on the West Coast had grown as well as the better North Island plantations, and had produced high volumes of timber without topdressing, said the director of forest management for the New Zealand Forest Service (Mr A Kirkland). He was replying to three men—Gil van Reenen, Michael Hamblett, and Pete Lusk —who, in a joint letter to “The Press,” have written: “The Forest Service plans to cut down 700,000 acres of native beech forest on the West Coast and in Southland, and sell it as pulp overseas. We understand that about half this total area is to be converted from beech forest to pines. But it is common knowledge that the soils where these forests are growing are poor. What happens after the first crop of pines has been milled? Will the soil support a second crop and a third crop, or will we be left with a wasteland of regrowth stunted pines, and 350,000 acres of ruined soil? We rather think this latter will be the case. The land can be exploited only so far.” Mr Kirkland said that the

Forest Service proposed to log about 530,000 acres on the West Coast, half of which would be regenerated and managed as beech forest, and about 200,000 acres of which might be converted to plantations after logging. Proposals for the Southland area envisaged the logging of about 190,000 acres, and the conversion to plantation of about 150,000 acres, he said. “The soils in Southland are, in general, better both physically and chemically than those of the West Coast, and no difficulty is anticipated in growing several crops of pines,” said Mr Kirkland. “Soils on the West Coast are more variable, and the areas planned for conversion to plantation have, therefore, been carefully chosen. Conversion would take place mainly on hill country, and to a lesser extent on recent alluvial terraces. “The hill soils themselves are variable, but over most of the area they have no ad-

verse physical properties which would prevent growing several crops of pine trees. Productivity is, for example, unlikely to be limited to any extent by a shallow rooting.

“Chemically, the hill soils have very low levels of calcium and phosporous, which would necessitate the application of super-phosphate. with or without trace elements, in growing several successive crops. Analysis of the soils on which conversion would take place suggests that the leaching process known as podsolisation would be no more rapid under pines than under the native beech.” Mr Kirkland said.

“Topdressing would be at lower rates than used on agricultural land throughout New Zealand ,and would ensure that there is no question of a ‘wasteland of regrowth stunted pines.’ “Incidentally, the proposals for logging and restocking these forests do not envisage selling the resultant produce exclusively as pulp or exclusively overseas,” Mr Kirkland said. “Those logs which are suitable would be used to produce high-quality sawn timbers or veneers, and the residues might be pulped together with the low-quality logs which are now wasted in logging,” he said.