A Practical Guide to Managing Tōtara on Private Land

Project Status: Completed

This Tāne’s Tree Trust project was co-funded by Te Uru Rākau. It delivers a comprehensive web-based manual, complemented with short instructional videos on the management of tōtara for timber production on private land.

It was completed in November 2022.

Background

Since forming in 2005, the Northland Tōtara Working Group has conducted a series of funded projects exploring the potential to sustainably manage regenerating tōtara on private land for high-value timber production - and the many environmental values associated with native forest cover. All have produced extremely encouraging results. Indeed, the Tōtara Industry Pilot project indicates that there is a business case for a regional industry to start up based on sustainably managing the regenerated tōtara resource.

(refer: https://www.totaraindustry.co.nz/ )

Considerable knowledge and experience has been gained from these projects, and when combined with Tāne’s Tree Trust’s information on planting and establishing native forests, it comprehensively covers management of the species from planting and silviculture through to harvest, extraction and processing of the timber. However, this information had not been collated into a single, complete, and easily accessible form. Some of it, such as practical silvicultural experience (e.g., form-pruning methodology and techniques, and harvest tree selection etc.) had not been documented in any form and was therefore not accessible. This project provides useful practical guidance on managing tōtara based on a combination of personal experience and research findings.

Five chapters cover the topics such as introducing the tōtara opportunity, planting tōtara, pruning, thinning, and harvesting tōtara. Along with accompanying videos, they are now posted on the Tāne’s Tree Trust website for free viewing and downloading. Also, a hardcopy book version of the collated chapters is available for purchase through Tāne’s Tree Trust.

Outputs

Chapters of the Practical Guide can be downloaded on the links below:

• Quinlan, P. 2022: The Tōtara Opportunity – An Introduction to: A practical guide to managing tōtara on private land (PDF, 8.62 MB). Tāne’s Tree Trust. Unpubl. 22p.
• Quinlan, P. 2022: Planting and Establishing Tōtara – A practical guide to managing tōtara on private land (PDF, 7.39 MB). Tāne’s Tree Trust. Unpubl. 36p.
• Quinlan, P. 2021: Pruning Tōtara – A practical guide to managing tōtara on private land (PDF, 9.44 MB). Tāne’s Tree Trust. Unpubl. 32p.
• Quinlan, P. 2021: Thinning Tōtara – A practical guide to managing tōtara on private land. (PDF, 7.61 MB) 12 Nov 2021 version videos still to come. Tāne’s Tree Trust. Unpubl. 24p.
• Quinlan, P. 2021: Harvesting Tōtara – A practical guide to managing tōtara on private land (PDF, 8.97 MB). Tāne’s Tree Trust. Unpubl. 40p.

Supporting Videos:

• Form-pruning tōtara for timber production on private land. By Paul Quinlan and Ian Brennan; Tāne’s Tree Trust. 2021. https://vimeo.com/580207222
• Freestyle silviculture in naturally regenerating tōtara forests on private land. By Paul Quinlan and Ian Brennan; Tāne’s Tree Trust. 2022. https://vimeo.com/748899167
• Harvesting tōtara – trialing small-scale, low-impact methods. By Paul Quinlan and Ian Brennan; Tāne’s Tree Trust. 2022. https://vimeo.com/692925422
• Ring-barking in tōtara forests managed for timber production. By Paul Quinlan and Ian Brennan; Tāne’s Tree Trust. 2022. https://vimeo.com/769118343

Contacts for this project

• Project Manager, Paul Quinlan
• TTT Executive Officer: Enable JavaScript to view protected content.