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Native timber tree trial on Rewanui

Last updated 22nd October 2007

From the beginning Foundation members have been keen to foster the development of NZ native trees for timber and sought the best way of doing this. At the Tane Tree Trust seminar in November 2005 it was proposed that TTT assist in the establishment of a trial of different species of natives and this has resulted in a collaborative trial being set up on the Mangapakeha block at the Eastern end of Rewanui. The terrain is hilly with areas of scattered Manuka and Kanuka that should provide good protection for young trees. Several soil types and aspects give added scope to the trial.

Discussion Discussion on trial layout at a typical site. Participants from the left are Stu Orme forest manager , Hilton Dickens farm forester, Peter Berg and David Bergmen from Tane Tree Trust.
Most of the trees were planted in August 2006, the exception being Rewarewa which were considered too small to plant at that time. All trees in the trial will be measured and assessed each year.
Tree trial Layout of the trial area

All data in the trial is stored as plain text files with the fields separated by tabs.
Download the block data Trial blocks
Download the tree observations Trial observations
Download a program to view the data Trees program
The three files above have been compressed into one zip file for ease of downloading.
Download the Zip file containing data and program Tree trial.zip

Species in the trial are:
Block ID Species Aspect Location NZ map grid
B Kahikatea Open Below front track
B Kahikatea Scrub Below front track
A Rimu Scrub Below front track-1st spp
D Maire Scrub Above front track
C Tawa Scrub Above front track
R Kauri Scrub Top of bottom track
T Totara Scrub Top of bottom track
Z Black Beech Open Above bottom track
a Red Beech Open Above bottom track
F Miro Scrub Below front track Nth of Rimu
E Matai Scrub Above bottom track-1st spp
L Rimu Open Opposite A at bottom of hill
P Matai Open Below middle track
Q Matai Canopy Below middle track
S Totara Open Below middle track
T Totara Canopy Next to "S" below top track
V Kahikatea Canopy Above track
W Puriri Canopy Off centre track
W Puriri Canopy Above top track with Black Beech
X Black Beech Open Above top track
Y Red Beech Open Below top track
I Totara Canopy Above and below top track
K Tawa Canopy Above top track
J Rimu Canopy Below top track
M Maire 65 Open Below top track
N Maire Canopy Below top track
G Kauri Open
H Kauri Canopy Below top track at Eastern corner
J Miro Scrub Below middle track

Each block of trees has been assigned an alphabetical letter and each tree within the block a number so all trees are uniquely identified. Tree IDs are permanently written on aluminium tags attached to a stake next to each tree.