Eucalyptus - the Rocket Tree!
When it comes to their use in plantings and even in thewider landscape Eucalypts cop a lot of bad press. As usual its often down topoor decisions and management on our behalf. The litany of complaints againstthe Eucalypt include: Those planted as a windbreak or privacy hedge along a smallacreage property boundary, they worked fantastically for the first 2-3 yearsand then grew so tall and opened-up again underneath. The rain of branches isdangerous for the residents and rough on the mower blades. To top it all off,the quote that the arborist gave to remove these giants, that were only adecade or two old, was enough to make the landholder fall to the groundclasping their chest. Then there are the ex-pat Eucalypts planted internationallyin places such as Brazil, California & Spain for timber but can becomeenvironmental weeds (can’t emphasises the word planted enough, why oh why do wehave to move trees around the planet for our own economic benefit and then getannoyed with them when the naturalise, and discreetly forget that we areresponsible for their presence). Then there are the ones that are very much athome where they evolved, on this land that we now call Australia. Althoughcrucial habitat to our beloved Koala, they are more frequently seen as adangerous, about to burst into flames, demon of a tree that that will burn outthe country and send us back to the sea from whence we came. Yet again, itdoesn’t have to be like this, First Nations Australians have lived withEucalypts for at least 60,000 years, by managing the land with fire and therewas no flaming apocalypse. As a maturing nation (I say this with hope) we mustrecognise and appreciate the crucial importance of Indigenous fire management /farming of the landscape, come to terms with our collective responsibility indisrupting, destroying this management during the last few hundred years ofEuropean colonisation and the importanceof reinstating indigenous fire management for our collective future both sociallyand ecologically.
Soap box oratory over, time to get back to the Rocket Treestatement. Eucalypt species tend to grow very fast, very, very, very fast. Takea local example we grow, Eucalyptus grandis Rose Gum / Flooded Gum. Onone particular site we’ve seen them grow 4 + metres in their first year, that’sif the wallabies don’t nibble them or koalas climb them and start breakingbranches, which unfortunately happens on a tree that’s, that young. At least 2metres a year should be a good conservative figure in coastal SE QLD. We also havesome trees getting close to 20 metres at just over 13 years in the ground.Hence the Rocket Tree analogy and in a time when we need to be planting andregenerating trees more than ever, how can we harness this rather impressivegrowth rate, without ending up with some of the problems listed above.
First up, plant Eucalypts native to your area and/ /or appropriateto the type of planting. There are over 700 Australian endemic Eucalypts. Potentialmature heights do vary amongst species, from the smallest Eucalyptusvernicosa theVarnished-leaf Gum of Tasmania to the tallest(historically the tallest trees in the world) Eucalyptus regnans theMountain Ash. In any given area you will have local native Eucalypt speciesthat should be the only ones going in revegetation projects and arguablyforestry plants, but if you do want smaller ones for your garden or landscapingthere are host of smaller local natives and cultivars.
Next up reinstate indigenous fire management in Eucalyptbased forest systems. This country we now call Australia has a long and proudhistory (60,000 + years) of human land management. What many of us now think ofas wilderness, is a landscape in which human management is / was / needs to beintegral, to think otherwise perpetuates the myth of Terra nullius and damagesour forests. As many of us are new Australian’s (97%), we have very limitedunderstanding of indigenous fire management, but luckily for us all, FirstNations people are reclaiming their right to manage country and organisationssuch as the Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation and the ground breakingbook by Victor Steffensen “Fire Country - how Indigenous fire management couldhelp save Australia”, are again blazing a trail (pardon the pun) to reinstatethe land management that so much of this country needs.
Lastly and unfortunately, as so often is the case,inspiration for the use and appreciation of yet another Australian native planthas come from another country, Brazil. Ernst Gotsch has been incorporating Eucalyptusgrandis into his agroforestry systems for many decades. The system he hasdeveloped is called Syntropic Farming and long story short, plants that growfast (regardless of whether they are exotic or native), are incorporated into aagroforestry system that produces food and other resources and restores therainforest ecosystems, by the human management of successional processes offorests. Fast growing trees like Eucalyptus are used to kick start thesuccessional process and be nurse trees for the next stage of development,whether that be fruit trees such as bananas or restoring rainforest ecosystemsthat have been cleared to grassland. The dominant paradigm with regardsplanting of Eucalypts is that they are thieves of the soil stealing bothnutrients and moisture and likely to explode in a ball of flame if a source ofignition is waived in their vicinity. But how can a tree that’s producing thismuch biomass be a thief? Surely they are generators of life, harvesting thesuns energy at a very impressive rate and we like Ernst need to be making themost of this. Management is the key, we can harvest these incredibly, quick andpotentially tall growing trees, by pruning. Ernst has developed as system thatallows trees such as our Eucalyptus grandis to grow like only they can, andthen prune back to a 6 metre pole each year and all the pruning’s fed back tothe soil, rapidly increasing soil carbon and soil development. When harvestedlike this, these trees can be incorporated into rainforest revegetation or treecrop development and reduce the need for external inputs such as mulch andfertilisers.
The First Nations people of Australia and so many other countries across the globe recognise and appreciate the Eucalypts, it’s about time so many of us new Australians recognised their intrinsic importance to our land and work with them to allow their full potential both ecologically and agriculturally to be realized.
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