Planting by hand makes for hard work

Nigel Grant and his team around Tumbarumba are flat out.

They are planting two million pine seedling mainly from Forestry Corporation’s Blowering Nursery.

And they are planting them by hand.

“Planting is extremely hard work. You must be fit,” NIgel said.

“Our workers are mainly in the 18 to 35 year age group.

“They work hard and make very good money. You’re out and all sorts of weather.”

Maximum temperatures can get down too eight degrees and get down to minus seven some mornings

“This year we will usually run two planting crews,” Nigel said.

“But this year the trees coming out of all nurseries have been stunted, due to the prime growing time last year was overcast and cold and the trees didn’t grow to their full potential.

“So instead of planting 3.4 million trees we are back to two million.”

There is 20 in the crew at present but normally there would be double that.

Nigel Grant Contracting is based at Tumbarumba NSW in the heart of the pine region. The company works across a huge area covering the Southwest slopes of New South Wales.

Company owner Nigel Grant set up the company in 2007. He was born in Tumbarumba and grew up farming but switched from farming to forestry in 2006 when he was 36 years old.

Silviculture is Nigel Grant Contracting’s main business, but the company also undertakes, earthmoving, environmental rehabilitation, weed spraying and contract firefighting services.

Key customers are corporate forestry state and local governments agencies and farmers.

The company also does a lot of work for Hume Forests, Sothern Cross Forests and Snowy Mountains Forests, these companies have now caught up with the post fire planting.

“When we finish planting, we’ll go on to weed control, fertilizing and wildling removal.

“And then we run two summer firefighting outfits for Forest Corp,” he said.

“We also run three fire crews for Hume Forests.”

Nigel Grant Contracting also carries out work for national parks and rehabilitation works.

“We do a lot of wildling and regeneration work in the cooler months,” he said.

“The worst effect of the recent fires besides losing millions of trees is all the wildling seedlings that sprouted post fires.

“So, you go and plant your 1000 stems per hectare, and in some areas’ there’s 2000 stems growing in between the rows that germinated from seeds.

And again, they have to removed by hand.

“Otherwise, they’ll compete, and you’ll have 2000/5000 stems per hectare instead of 1000,” Nigel said.

In 12/15 years’, time the harvesting crews won’t be able to get their harvesting heads around the tree’s, another major problem is the new trees won’t grow because of the competition.”

The company also undertakes inventory data collection on trees in plantation’s supplying information to various forestry companies regarding harvesting, future budgeting requirements and plantation health. silvicultural is a highly specialized field which is extremely labour intensive with staffing numbers reaching over 50 employees in busy times of the season.

“It’s a hard game, but it is very rewarding,” Nigel said.

A completely redesigned cab keeps the operator comfortable all day long, while robust, high-quality components and stressfree serviceability boost productivity.

Experience the Tigercat 632H for yourself. Contact Onetrak today.