Vocational Days in South Australia

G'day from the state of South Australia!

We made it to the city of Mount Gambier on Sunday night (March 1st) and have been so busy touring the local forest operations that this is the first time we've had a chance to post! Mt. Gambier is a hub for forest activity in this region. We are in the heart of what's known as "The Green Triangle"- a vast expanse of radiata pine and blue gum (eucalypt) plantations. Here is a list of what we have seen and done since Sunday:

Monday

• Employees of Forestry South Australia delivered presentations to us on the topics of Yield Regulation, Management Systems, Forest Health, and Fire Management in this region;
• A representative of Southern Cross University spoke to us about forest education at Australian universities;
• Tour the operations of seedEnergy's Seed Production facility (included a tour of their seed orchard);
• View a Tree Breeding site and become educated by a representative of the Seed & Tree Breeding Association;
• View the landscape of plantations from Mount Burr (which is not really a mountain by our definition, but somewhat of a hill compared to the rest of the landscape here) and discuss operational mapping;
• Visit a native forest site (similar to what we refer to as old growth) and discuss native forest management as well as water management with a representative from the South Australia Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation; then
  
• Deliver our presentation about BC/Washington Forestry at a dinner of 4 Rotary Clubs.

Tuesday

• Three members of the upcoming inbound Australian GSE team (who are also foresters) took us out to show us their field work of operational forestry;
• Visit a cultivation site where a blue gum plantation was about to be established;
• Visit a site to view active blue gum harvesting and in-field chipping;
• Visit a blue gum site that had just been harvested in December. Blue gum coppices at the stump and the new saplings were already 1m tall! (How's that for regen!);
• Visit a 5 year old blue gum plantation of Timbercorp's and discuss thinning and mid-rotation fertilization as well as forest health management. This plantation was being attacked by the cadmus beetle and would need to be aerially sprayed with insecticide soon;
• View active harvesting of radiata pine as well as the work of a "chopper roller" machine for site preparation- pretty neat!
  
• Winds up to 90 km/hr shut down harvest operations mid-day and blew the power out of the nearby town of Dartmoor. Everything shut down- even the schools- because of the wind and its associated fire risk;
• RAIN is delivered to this landscape! It hadn't rained here since December- we told them we brought it with us!
• As the rain clears up and sun comes, several kangaroo emerge from the woods and jump around as we head back to Mt. Gambier at the end of the day; then
  
• Deliver a presentation about BC/Washington forestry at a dinner meeting of the Institute of Foresters of Australia. Entertain several questions from a group of approximately 40 people.
  

Forestry here is SO different than coastal forestry where we come from. We look forward to sharing information with everyone about the details of these differences. We also look forward to showing the Australian GSE team of foresters what forestry in district 5020 is all about!

That's all for now. Tomorrow we transfer to Hamilton via Casterton.

We'll keep you "posted",
Jill