Category Archives: New Zealand

Last year the New Zealand Registered Master Builders 2011 House of the Year featured a stunning blackwood floor. But this was no blackwood imported blackwood from Tasmania, this was New Zealand plantation-grown blackwood.

http://www.houseoftheyear.co.nz/index.asp?id=83

The following is an article from the latest New Zealand Tree Grower journal (Feb 2012) written by Ian Nicholas and Paul Millen. Ian Nicholas is Chairman of AMIGO (the NZ blackwood growers group) and Paul Millen is a director of Marlborough Timbers

In November last year, a Marlborough Sounds house built by Glenroy Housing of Blenheim won the New Homes category $350,000 to $450,000 house of the year Registered Master Builders award. The house went on to claim the Supreme House of the Year award fighting off one and two million dollar houses. The house has been built for Marcus and Alex Myring who see their home as very special.

The Master Builders promotional description of the house states that locally milled blackwood has been laid in a distinctive pattern in the main living room, achieving a blend of warmth and sophistication and complementing the natural timber used extensively inside and out.

The judges in the new home category noted that the authentic blackwood timber flooring, locally milled and conditioned on site, has been laid to perfection with an innovative border trim, just one example of the complex detailing executed to perfection.

The timber for the floor was locally grown by Paul and Ash Millen of Marlborough Timbers at their forest, Tai Tane located nearby in Linkwater. They started sawing 18 to 20-year-old blackwood thinnings in 2004 when they first supplied timber for the floor of another Marlborough house.

Here is the builder’s website with lots more stunning images of the feature floor:

http://www.glenroyhousing.co.nz/awards.html

Examples like this clearly show that New Zealand farmers are well on track to producing high-quality, valuable, plantation-grown blackwood timber. Where are the Tasmanian farmers who will follow their New Zealand peers?

Cheers!

The latest newsletter from AMIGO, the New Zealand blackwood growers group has just arrived. They are having their AGM on the 5-6th November 2011, but unfortunately I can’t attend. Maybe next year. The newsletter has some interesting information. Here are some quotes from AMIGO Chairman Ian Nicholas:

“In May I was fortunate to host two Chile Researchers from INFOR, the government Forest Research Institute, Juan Carlos Pinilla from Concepcion and Juan Carlos Valencia from Valdivia. I took them on a whistle stop tour of blackwood in NZ that included Hunua ranges, Waikato, King Country, Rotorua, Tauranga, Harihari and Canterbury.

From Canterbury I joined them to see blackwood in Tasmania. I think this was a major shock to them. Kiwis growing plantation blackwood and Tasmanians still pursuing mixtures or sticking with managing native regeneration. There were a few nice examples of good trees and some showing disastrous experiences.

I was a little frustrated, after visiting Tasmania for 23 ears, there is almost no best practice plantations to show a visitor! Even one of their key blackwood sawmillers suggested there was no future in plantations, will they still say that when we export timber to them?

While there the two Juans gave a talk to a forestry audience and I chipped in with a summary of NZ experiences with blackwood.

This fired up ex-blackwood researcher Dr Gordon Bradbury who has subsequently tried to initiate a blackwood growers group in Tasmania. As chairman of AMIGO I provided a letter of support, watch this space.”

So both the New Zealanders and the Chileans think Tasmania is lagging behind in developing its blackwood potential. Maybe it is time to change….

And here is another interesting piece from the newsletter:

“Blackwood timber fetches good prices: On the good news front Malcolm Mackenzie from Otorohanga, who felled some blackwood trees as part of a pine logging operation, had them sawn up and recently sold some dried timber to Peter King’s 4th Generation (http://generation-4.co.nz/) factory at Carterton. On boards that were clear on
two faces and met King’s criteria, Malcolm was receiving $3,000/m3.

With imported blackwood ranging from $3,120/m3 to $5,170/m3 for 100 x 25 mm to 150 x 40 mm respectively (www.timspec.co.nz) there is an opportunity for good prices from Z grown quality timber. Congratulations to Paul Millen who spotted that 30% is added to these prices for lengths 2.1 m or longer (i.e. $4,056/m3 and $6,72l1m3!). Another reason to get pruning blackwood for form and clearwood.”