Millions of eucalypt and pine seedlings are being dispatched across NSW ahead of the annual State Forest planting season.

Grown from seed at Forestry Corporation’s Grafton and Tumut nurseries these seedlings will provide NSW with sustainable timber resources for the future.

In coming months, the seedlings will be mostly planted by hand in recently harvested compartments, regrowing these forests with trees for the future.

Forestry Corporation every year plants the equivalent of 14,000 football fields in plantations.

Forestry Corporation’s nursery staff play a huge hand in increasing the state’s timber resources.

“Our nurseries combined raise around 11 million new trees every year for the replanting of state forests across NSW. Most are grown from seed, while others are sourced externally to ensure a diverse and resilient plantation stock,” Grafton Nursery Manager Karen Morrow said.

“Here in Grafton, we are currently dispatching 300,000 hardwood seedlings, 380,000 softwood seedlings and a heap of specialty seedling orders.

“We have raised and dispatched 29,000 koala feed trees that will be hugely important in creating koala habitat through community and private property planting projects.

“An additional 15,000 Christmas tree seedlings have just been dispatched, along with 6,000 eucalyptus seedings for a private customer and another 23,000 eucalyptus seedlings will be dispatched for planting in June," she said.

Mechanical planting of hoop pine is also set to start at Pikapene near Grafton.

Forestry Corporation’s seedling stock will be supplemented with stock purchased from HQP in Queensland to produce the high-quality timber that is important to the plywood industry and used for furniture, veneer, joinery, panelling, particle board, flooring and boats.

A large replanting program will see around 700,000 radiata seedlings planted in New England pine forests in the Walcha district.

Half of those seedlings were transferred to Inverell for hardening in April, where they will stay until the plantings commence in July.

Dispatch will also take place from the Tumut nursery, which focuses on radiata pine in areas like Tumut, Bombala and Bathurst.

Every year NSW’s softwood plantations grow enough timber to build more than 40,000 homes a year.

Hardwood forests continue to produce incredible engineered products, such as the timber interior of the Sydney Opera House, but it’s the everyday uses where the timber is most needed producing power poles, marine wharf piers, timber pallets, timber flooring, decking and furniture.

Combined, the NSW forestry industry generates an estimated $2.4 billion for the economy employing 22,000 people in NSW.

For more information on replanting programs and forest management visit forestrycorporation.com.au