Research plans to fell pine prejudice

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

Forestry companies have started an $11 million research project which they believe could boost the value of forestry production by 25 per cent.

The Wood Quality Initiative, backed by 14 forestry organisations and the Government, aims to overcome prejudices against radiata pine by matching the quality of each piece of timber to its appropriate uses.

Fletcher Challenge Forests engineer Wayne Miller said the initiative could lift the prices of the best radiata to equal ponderosa, a high-value North American pine.

Fletcher executive Andries Popping, the chairman of the project's establishment board, said it could boost the industry's present $5 billion annual revenue by:

* $410 million from new market opportunities from segregating radiata according to its best uses.

* $62 million from optimum allocation of logs and wood chips.

* $100 million from making and licensing new tools to measure wood stiffness and density.

The value of existing forests would increase by $700 million arising from the first two changes.

"All are potentially possible if we can address some limitations that radiata has through high variability or insufficient quantity of the right type of fibre to go to the right applications," Popping said.

Fletcher Challenge Forests and Carter Holt Harvey will be "cornerstone shareholders" in a new limited liability company, WQI. It is understood that each will invest $250,000 a year.

Three research providers - Forest Research in Rotorua, Canterbury University and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) - will each invest a further $125,000 a year.

Norske Skog Tasman will invest $50,000 a year, and the remaining $200,000 will come in $25,000 annual contributions from P. F. Olsen & Co and the Radiata Pine Breeding Company in Rotorua, Malaysian-owned Ernslaw One, US-owned Weyerhaeuser, Chinese/US-owned Wenita, state-owned Timberlands West Coast, Dunedin City Council's City Forests and the Selwyn Plantation Board in Darfield.

The total of $1.125 million a year will be matched by the Government's Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

The initiative is one of four new research consortiums unveiled yesterday, each with industry funding of between $800,000 and $2.5 million a year plus matching funds from the Government. The others will investigate milk-based pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, white clover genomics and ways to reduce methane emissions from belching livestock.