Field Day Reclamation: Paengaroa: Welcome Bay; Waitara

 

 

Just got in. Logbook says 855.3 km. I’ll put up the thumbnails temporarily placed first, then get back to the field day issues.

Ok, had to have a bath; eat; then had to sleep; then needed to work. Now i can get back to down-sizing the photos and uploading them. Just noticed that there’s a new way of handling photos on my dashboard – I have to get my head around that. If you click on the thumbnail then it should come up bigger along with a caption. You can click on the bigger picture to see it even bigger.

Family farm forestry

Alternative joint venture

Paulownia

Farmstay

Blackwood

Cypress Risks

Himalayan Cypress

Durable Poles

Sugi

On November 18 and 19 the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association’s special purpose timber groups held their annual field days. There’s nothing really special about these timber species; nor anything special about the purposes for which they are used. Except against the background of a “monoculture’ in NZr forestry; and that they usually grow a lot slower than radiata pine. One ‘special’ thing is that certain researchers have been able to ‘leverage’ the groups’ enthusiasm, so as to get funding for researchers to stay employed. The field days can be set up and used as justification to say that research results are being disseminated. Such field days could be likened to an escorted tour in a 1950s style communist regime. The visitors are steered away from the dying and damaged trees, and the stands where silvicultural or siting decisions have gone awry. Species ( unilaterally ) deemed to be of no interest are likely to be omitted. A large amount of time may be spent on the social agenda of a clique; and certain persons always tend to dominate the discussion without adding to the knowledge base. I’m not necessarily knocking it, this is how it’s developed, from a time when there genuinely were one or two people who had the knowledge to impart. However, now, if you come along to learn something, or if you have some special need, then the opportunities will be limited by this model. I’ve found that the more freedom that I have to explore away from the self appointed experts, the more useful the field trip will be.Ie more and different including ‘bad’ examples are better than lots of talk at one site. I really pity those bussed around on ‘conferences’. In this case, it was OK for me personally because the Brann family in particular was incredibly hospitable. However, I think that the approach that the group is taking is unsatifactory in that it relies more on who you know rather than impersonally and appropriately delivering to you whatever it is that you need to know. I would like to think that others could benfit from that access that I have been given, or similar, without reliance on the goodwill of the few. It would also be useful to have a more inclusive forum to discuss field day topics.
Topics covered included: heli-logging which elliminates roading costs and erosion; benefits of timely thinning: appropriate eucalypt species ( durability class 2 E pilularis doing better in the top logs than D3 E globoidea or E muelleriana ); available Redwood genetics, pruning, growth.

The photos dont exactly match the official field days, but are a partial overlap. I also went off out the back and took ‘off topic’ photos. On the way home we took a ‘shortcut’ and came cross Bill Honor at his road fontage. Some of the photos I took there fit in well with the durable eucalypt discussion. I’m planning to do individual posts on some of the topics of the photos.

These posts will be a reclamation of the field days.