Growing seedlings

Pine tree seed is grown in seed orchards around New Zealand.  This seed is then sold to pine tree nurseries where they are grown into seedlings ready to be planted out.

Planting

When seedling are about 30 tall or 2 years old, they are ready to be planted.  Forest workers take bags of seedlings and walk the hills planting with a spade by hand.  These trees will grow here for the next 20-30 years till they are ready for harvest.

Growing trees

It’s time for the trees to grow. ………Looking after a forest can be a big job as they cover a huge area and work is ongoing in different parts of the forest.

Harvesting

Once the trees……we call this mechanical harvesting and more than 50% of our harvesting in New Zealand forests now have “no man on the ground” they are all driving machines.  Road building is a huge part of harvesting a forest, once those trees are cut, they have to get to market.

Logs to market

Logging trucks collect logs from the forests where they travel to sawmills both in New Zealand and overseas.  Logs can travel by trains or trucks to ports where they are loaded onto ships destined for overseas sawmills.  Sawmills in New Zealand produce many products that we use every day and we grow far too many logs for them to use.

Replant

Once the forest has been harvested the cycle starts all over again.  New trees are planted for the next generation of forests and wood products of the future.