Official opening of FT’s Forest Nursery and Seed Centre

After many months of planning and building, the $1.4 million renovations to the Forest Nursery and Seed Centre are complete. Managing Director Bob Gordon officially opened the facility on Friday, 18 April at the nursery near Perth.

The new state-of-the-art germination facility at Perth can grow high volumes of native and exotic tree species for industry and public land managers. In addition, the Tasmanian Seed Centre has been reorganised and merged with the Forest Nursery to better serve industry and individual clients.



Forestry Tasmania’s business partners will benefit from the increased capacity and reliability. The combined new facility puts FT in a better and stronger position for the long-term.


The FT Forest Nursery now has 2,600 square metres of indoor growing space, or enough room for 1.3 million eucalypt plantation seedlings at any one time. Typically, some 6 million seedlings of Pinus radiata, Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus nitens will be grown each year from seed-orchard seed stocks.

The Nursery is highly automated and flexible with a wide range of propagation methods being used. Seedlings will germinate and grow at an even pace, which allows for peak productivity and substantially reduces the need for the time-consuming task of manually sorting the seedlings according to their growth stage.



It has the flexibility to grow a wide range of tree crops, including an increased capacity to grow seedlings for forestry companies. In addition to germinating seeds, the Nursery has the capacity to be used for other purposes such as raising new trees from cuttings produced from hydroponically grown stock plants.


The Forest Nursery and Seed Centre can offer clients a number of services, including large-volume seedling production, cold-hardened stock, species propagation, a wide range of propagation methods, and consultancy and advice on nursery practice and infrastructure development.

Following the official opening, Bob Gordon took time to acknowledge a special achievement by staff at Forest Nursery and Seed Centre – 1000 days (and counting) without time lost due to injury.

This accomplishment is due to the conscientiousness and hard work of staff. FT staff have set an excellent example for the rest of the organisation – they work as a team and look out for each other’s safety and well being. I join Bob in saying “well done, thank you, and keep up the good work”.

return to Branchline Home

---