22 Sep 2017

Tiny trees aplenty

From Country Life, 9:25 pm on 22 September 2017
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Photo: RNZ Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

Rangiora Nursery grows more four million tiny trees a year for high-quality forest and shelter tree cuttings. Owner Derrick Parry employs up to 60 seasonal workers at the busiest times.

Owned and managed by Derrick Parry since 1990, the nursery at East Eyreton in North Canterbury grows more than four million tiny trees a year.

The nursery carries about 15,000 mother plants to the hectare and 10 cuttings are taken from each plant a year.

Taking cuttings off more than 20 hectares of low-lying stool beds is a difficult job but some workers can average 4000 a day.

Every cutting and seedling is checked for quality and size before being boxed and transported off to a forest the next day.

It's been a rocky three decades for the forest nursery industry with orders for trees yoyo-ing.

In the 1990s about 130 million trees were grown a year; that slipped back to 37 million in 2008.

Tree numbers rose during the mini carbon boom then came back down to about 50 million. Now, with orders already placed through to 2021, the industry is bouncing back.

'We're seeing a bit of carbon interest coming through now on top of major forestry, which has been replanting existing forests," Derrick Parry says.