Eucalypt Plantations for Solid Wood Products in Australia - A Review ‘If you don’t prune it, we can’t use it’

Abstract

This review explores influences and impediments that impact a solid products industry's ability to profitably process a plantation hardwood resource. Profitably is taken to mean profitable over time, and therefore a sustainable industry. It reports on research covering: · The solid wood products that can be made from plantation hardwoods · The economic or commercial viability of producing these products from the available and potential resource · The likely wood properties of this resource · The relationship between silvicultural and genetic aspects of plantation hardwood forestry, and wood properties and product recovery. While information on regrowth hardwood is included, this report focuses on growing and processing the eucalypt or closely related native hardwood species, such as Corymbia spp., that make up most of Australia's hardwood plantations.