Farmers advised about trees

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34000, 14 November 1975, Page 7

Farmers advised about trees

Members of the staff of the Forest Service are at present visiting farmers to advise them whether timber from trees blown down on their properties in the gale in August can be marketed. The principal forester with the Forest Service in Christchurch, Mr H. H. Wilson, said early this week that it was hoped that this survey would be completed within about two weeks. He said that the officers would be giving farmers sufficient assurance that if their timber was not merchantable there was no point in further delaying cleaning it up. The possibility of export was being discussed with farmers but there were two problems associated with the export of timber from small woodlots. One was that the specifications for logs were such that there would be a relatively small proportion that would comply with these requirements and the removal of logs of export quality would be at the expense of any remaining material. The .pecitications for export required that 90 per cent by volume should be ’ogs 26ft and 39ft long and 921 per cent of that had to have a small-end diameter of Bin or greater, and the remaining 10 per cent had to be logs of 13ft with a minimum small-end diameter of Bin. The effect of this was that in a plantation of suitable size trees about 50 per cent might be of export quality, but in farm shelter belts or small woodlots the percentage might well be less.

There could also be a problem with facilities for logging and loading. Within any one area there needed to be a sufficient quantity of material to justify bringing in a logging operator to handle the logs. Mr Wilson said that the impression that they had gained so far was that farmers were most anxious that the wind-thrown timber should not be wasted, and that they should be able to proceed with the cleaning up of their trees so that they could get on with farming. . The greatest volume of timber seemed to be in North Canterbury. Any farmer with timber down on his property who had not received a visit from an officer of the service or heard from an officer within about two weeks, would be advised to notify Federated Farmers if he wanted advice, said Mr Wilson.