Eucalyptus International: global plants

We start here a thread depicting Eucalyptus cultivation around the world. Some 200 years after their discovery eucalypts have become some of the most important travelling plants in human history, introduced in countries in all continents. Their importance as source of timber and non timber products, as landscape elements, as ornamental plants, is one of the outstanding contributions of Australia to the world.

Southern Australia

Saudi Arabia

Arizona

Brazil

California

Chile

China

Denmark

India

Netherlands

Peru

Spain

Tasmania

Victoria

Wales

Acknowledgements

We will be adding here a list of contributing authors. We hope it grows!

Diron, F. (Eucalyptushaven.dk); ITG Services Ltd (Trek!Peru); Jordan, G. J. (UTAS); McConnell, A. (Celyn Vale); Lal, P. (Pragati Biotechnologies); Lambert, J. (Woollybutt Pty Ltd); Midgley, S. J. (CSIRO); Pinilla Suárez, J.C. (INFOR); Prins, H. (de Groene Prins); Ritter, M. (CalPoly); Rouw, M. (EucalyptusKwekerij Koala); Turnbull, J. W. (ACIAR); Turner, L. (Emu Ridge)...

Contribute to Eucalyptus International

Wherever you are, consider sharing your images with us to enlarge this thread depicting Eucalyptus cultivation around the world and help creating an international online gallery: Eucalyptus, the global plants. But please, not just trees. People, and trees. Simply contact us, and we will find the best way to receive your images to later add them to the thread.

Contact GIT Forestry Consulting - Eucalyptologics

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Download the Global Eucalyptus Cultivation Map 2008

EUCALYPTOLOGICS brings you as part of our Global Resource Maps a visual summary of the key statistics for Eucalyptus based cultivated forests around the world. If you are in need for an answer to the question "how many planted hectares of Eucalyptus have been established?", be it at a global level or for a particular country, this resource is expected to be useful to you.

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

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© 2007-2008 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, and the other authors too, but we do not like rudeness.

King Regnans: Attenborough's Giant Eucalyptus

Sir David Attenborough has been travelling the world for the last 50 years to show us the wonders of nature in all its forms. There are so many amazing moments captured in film with him around that choosing just one is a though choice. But this is EUCALYPTOLOGICS, the Eucalyptus Blog, so the natural choice has to be witnessing a Giant among Giants showing us King Regnans. Enjoy the Mountain Ash in its old growth Australian forest habitat!

(click to play)
King Regnans Giant Eucalyptus video courtesy of BBC

Originally released by 1995, the Peabody Award Winner nature documentary The Private Life of Plants by the BBC is a striking trip around the world to unveil the secrets of plant evolution, adaptation and struggle for survival in this ever changing world we all have the priviledge to warden.

Attenborough's comments wisely blended with amazing photography and Richard Grassby-Lewis' musical companion make this piece of art a milestone in the divulgation of botany, biogeography, ecology and environmental science. And the 7 minute long piece on Eucalyptus is certainly worth watching. But do not forget the other 285 minutes!

Get BBC's The Private Life of Plants DVD's from BBC Shop Online

Get The Private Life of Plants Soundtrack from 2ndSight

Chasing... the Tallest Trees in Europe

So what if you received an unexpected call asking you to join a Giant Tree Trek visiting what probably are the tallest trees in Europe... and you said "Yes, Sir (of course!!!)"?

More Eucalyptus Giants around this site

• Eucalyptus paulistana: The Brazilian Giant
  
• Eucalyptus: The Giants of Spain & Portugal
• Eucalyptus globulus: Giant Heritage Trees
• Eucalyptus Giants: The Fat Guys at Both Sides of the World
• The Karri Knight: Tallest Tree in Europe?
• Grandpa, the Giant Eucalyptus... in video
  
• Eucalyptus: coastal rainforests in Galicia (Spain)
• Giant Trees: Eucalyptus & Friends, twelve treasures to preserve
  

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

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Eucalyptus paulistana: The Brazilian Giant

Navarro de Andrade, the man who planted 24 million Eucalyptus trees... or more.

Gustavo Iglesias Trabado
GIT Forestry Consulting - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS

"Go, without delay. Leave anything else you have to do. Nothing is more pressing because nothing is more precious for you to do during your trip to São Paulo but visiting the Forestry Station at Rio Claro. Anything else matters little. Here you will find what you cannot see anywhere else. Everything is unheard of, gigantic, majestic... If you want a boost to your pride of being Brazilian, but with a well deserved and fair pride, then go to Rio Claro. And when leaving the place, travel straight to Rio de Janeiro... There is nothing else of interest to see afterwards for whom got to know the wonderful work of a Brazilian whose name so few remember: Navarro de Andrade"

Excerpts of correspondence between writers Monteiro Lobato & Celestino Silveira (1945)

We have seen previously here in EUCALYPTOLOGICS examples of Eucalyptus Giants both in Europe and in Australia surviving as heritage trees, and followed the development of the Eucalyptus Atlantic rainforest in Europe from a botanical rarity to a major timber resource. But meanwhile all this was slowly happening, a major figure was to emerge from the rich soils of Brazil. Before him the industrial uses of the ubiquitous Australian trees overseas had known of the failure of Californian expectations. After him Eucalyptus forestry in America but also in the world would change forever. What he successfully started a hundred years ago was to be followed for decades by foresters and silviculturalists in four continents. He was o plantador de eucaliptos. The Eucalyptus planter. The man of A Paulista. Eucalyptus paulistana.

Edmundo Navarro de Andrade (1881-1941), the brief story of an Eucalyptus Giant

1820's - First mentions on Eucalyptus being planted in Brazil as botanical rarity.

1897 - Navarro de Andrade sets foot on the School of Agronomy at Coimbra (Portugal), in the neighbourhood of the Karri Knight and the first sizeable Eucalyptus plantations in Europe.



1903 - Navarro de Andrade arrives back in Brazil. In some months he would be in charge of forestry experiments and silvicultural research for Paulista Railways at Jundiaí Forest Garden.

1906 - Navarro de Andrade completes the planting of 32000 eucalypts at Jundiaí to compare their growth and industrial potential for short cycle timber production against 8000 native Brazilian trees. Eucalyptus won.



1909 - Navarro de Andrade starts mass planting of industrial Eucalyptus crops at Río Claro to provide fuelwood, sleepers and poles for Paulista Railways. The experience on the 2200 ha of Rio Claro would spread on over 20 extra massive plantings along the main lines of this railroad in order to create a local supply of firewood/charcoal for steam locomotives.



1910 - Four Eucalyptus specimens leave the Paulista nurseries at Rio Claro and are planted among dozens of thousands more. But these have a certain significance. Fifteen years later they will travel as wood logs with Navarro de Andrade to the United States to be processed experimentally into a pulp of cellulose first and further into high quality printed paper, pioneering the birth of a short fibre Brazilian Eucalyptus based Cellulosic Pulp & Paper Industry.



1913 - Navarro de Andrade visits Joseph Henry Maiden in Sydney during a world tour. Eucalyptus planter and Eucalyptus botanist talk on their favourite trees. Edmundo is gifted by J. H. Maiden with plates from the Herbarium of New South Wales and provided with seeds of over 150 additional Eucalyptus species to the ones he had already trialled.



1916 - Building of Museu do Eucalipto starts at Rio Claro to store the vast amounts of knowledge being generated by Navarro de Andrade, plus artifacts and samples of all products derived from Eucalyptus trees. Nowadays known as the Eucalyptus Museum "Navarro de Andrade", it is unique in the world.



1928 - Navarro de Andrade receives the Medaille de St. Hilaire and the Grande Medaille Hors Classe on behalf of Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro from the Société Nationale d'Acclimatation de France.


1941 - Navarro de Andrade receives the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources from the American Genetics Association. He would pass away some months later leaving the impressive legacy of 24 million planted eucalypt trees. If not more.

1942 - Edmundo's nephew, Armando Navarro Sampaio, continues the work on Eucalyptus cultivation and starts genetic improvement protocols following the footprints and legacy of his uncle. Soon Brazilian railroads would stop using eucalypt charcoal for power generation and start using eucalypt poles to build the newer electrified lines, but steel factories were to continue demanding their timber for energy generation purposes until nowadays. At the same time one of the major Eucalyptus pulp and paper industries in the world started to develop.



2007 - More than 4 billion Eucalyptus trees of over 150 species grow in the different climates of Brazil. Just a handful of them are prevalent but they have become a strategic timber resource of such a magnitude that whatever happens within this Eucalyptus Agricultural Superpower has a global impact.

Want to follow Andrade's footprints?

• Visit Navarro de Andrade State Forest, Floresta Estadual Navarro de Andrade, Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brasil.
• Visit the Eucalyptus Museum, Museu do Eucalipto "Navarro de Andrade", Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brasil.
• Read on Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro (Paulista Railways) in Marco Aurélio Álvares da Silva's Railway Website

Recommended reading

• Navarro de Andrade, E. (1909) A cultura do Eucalyptus. Sao Paulo. Typhographia Brasil.
• Navarro de Andrade, E. (1910) A cultura do Eucalyptus nos Estados Unidos. Sao Paulo. Typographia Brasil.
• Navarro de Andrade, E. (1911) O manual do plantador de eucaliptos. Sao Paulo. Rothschild.
• Navarro de Andrade, E. (1918) Os Eucalyptus: a sua cultura e exploraçao. Sao Paulo. Rothschild.
• Navarro Sampaio, A. (1948) O eucalipto. Boletim da Secretaria de Agricultura, Indústria, Comercio e Trabalho. Nº especial. Belo Horizonte.
• Martini, Augusto J. (2002). O plantador de Eucalyptus: a questao da preservacao florestal no Brasil e o resgate documental do legado de Edmundo Navarro de Andrade. Msc Thesis. University of Sao Paulo.
• Foelkel, Celso (2006). The Eucalyptus in Brazil. Eucalyptus Online Book & Newsletter. Newsletter nº 5. A Grau Celsius / Celsius Degree Production.

Acknowledgements

To Ralph Mennuci Giesbrecht for his perseverance in the divulgation of history of Brazilian railroads, to Augusto Martini for his perserverance in the fight for preservation of Edmundo's legacy and to Celso Foelkel for his perserverance in the divulgation of Eucalyptus knowledge worldwide. And of course, to Edmundo, wherever he is, for daring. I heard the first thing he asked St. Peter to was "¿entao caro senhor, há algum horto ou jardim con eucaliptos no ceu?".

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

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© 2007 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, but we do not like rudeness.

Grandpa, the Giant Eucalyptus... in video

We have already seen in this blog some images of the Giant Eucalyptus of Spain & Portugal. And while telling the story of these giant eucalypts we had mentioned that among those at Souto da Retorta (Lugo, Spain) tradition marks one of them, O Avó de Chavín (The Grandfather), as the main shrine of a magical place.

Today we bring you Grandpa and Loreena McKennitt ... in video!

Images and movie are courtesy of El Blog de Forestman, yet another Naturalist corner of the Internet cultivated by foresters and a window to watch the inhabitants of the Spanish woods. Bookmark that place.

Also to check while here...

More Eucalyptus Giants around this site

• Eucalyptus paulistana: The Brazilian Giant
  
• Eucalyptus: The Giants of Spain & Portugal
• Eucalyptus globulus: Giant Heritage Trees
• Eucalyptus Giants: The Fat Guys at Both Sides of the World
• The Karri Knight: Tallest Tree in Europe?
• Grandpa, the Giant Eucalyptus... in video
• King Regnans: Attenborough's Eucalyptus Giants
  
• Eucalyptus: coastal rainforests in Galicia (Spain)

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

Subscribe to receive EUCALYPTOLOGICS via RSS

Subscribe to receive EUCALYPTOLOGICS via e-mail

Eucalyptus from seed: some key concepts

Growing Eucalyptus from seed: it is in the details

Gustavo Iglesias Trabado
GIT Forestry Consulting - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS

Fig. 1: Examples of cold hardy Eucalyptus forestry seedling commercial nursery stock for afforestation. (Click image to enlarge)

Propagating Eucalyptus from seed is easy. But easy and efficient are variable concepts that have to be considered depending on plant production targets. Amenity growing and commercial nursery production share the same basic concepts, but a considerable amount of extra details must be considered in each particular case.

The basic idea should always be "each seed matters" no matter at what stage of seedling growing you are. The closer the final results are to this key initial idea, the better. But inbetween the ideal maximum efficiency and total failure many results can be satisfactory from both technical and financial points of view.

Today we present you a small sequence of basic stages from Eucalyptus seed sowing to final plant dispatch using one of the simplest methods. It can be of aid for those growing eucalypts in small amounts and without using fully mechanised industrial processes.

Eucalyptus Seedbed Preparation

Fig. 2: Example of simple methodology for Eucalyptus germination substrate mix preparation and Eucalyptus seed activation procedure. (Click image to enlarge)

Eucalyptus germinants to plantable seedling stock

Fig. 3: Example of mobilisation to definitive containers and Eucalyptus growing phase to final desired size. (Click image to enlarge)

Devil is in the details

Some of the important details to enhance the efficiency of your Eucalyptus growing method at nursery stage have to do with concepts as seed quality, seed purity, need of pre-germination treatments, sowing methodology and timing, germination procedures, growing environment, nursery infrastructures, production schedule, finished desired plant specifications, alternative methodologies for each step of the productive process and cost vs. efficiency financial analysis.

Plant quality for Eucalyptus forestry seedling production is a mix of:

• 30% Seed quality --> Genetic background --> Genetic Improvement
  
• 30% Seed handling --> Storage, pre-germination & germination --> Nursery Seed Laboratory
  
• 30% Plant morphology --> Nursery practice --> Productive Process Engineering
  
• 10% Luck --> Shit happens
  

As you see, more than half the chances of long term success for high quality Eucalyptus plant stock has to do with seed quality. More importantly at industrial scale commercial operations where mechanisation and infrastructure account positively on easier nursery practice.

Wanna know how?

Fig 4: Ornamental Eucalyptus 'Blue Silver' sculpted as big bonsai

Complementary to ornamental Eucalyptus market oriented experience GIT Forestry Consulting's team of Agronomic and Forestry Engineers has conducted forestry-stock nursery trials in Northwestern Spain with select germplasm of over 15 Eucalyptus types having potential for timber production in temperate humid Atlantic climates, and has sorted out detailed individualised solutions to adapt successful productive process engineering to different nursery infrastructures and industrial scale plant production schemes.

Fig. 5: High quality forestry standard Eucalyptus seedlings at nursery

An interesting range of potential products for the Iberian and European forestry plant market has been obtained matching high quality standards.

This know how (what + when + how + why + how much) and our ability to organise training courses for your nursery staff is now available via consulting agreement to wholesale and specialist forestry plant nurseries interested in joining cooperative strategies for production and commercialization.

Contact GIT Forestry Consulting - Eucalyptologics

If interested, we are happy to hear from you. Just fill the form and provide us with full contact details and a short description of your company's activity.

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

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© 2007 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, but we do not like rudeness.