Team behind Totara trial confident the native wood can be harvested large scale

The team behind a totara timber trial say they're confident the native wood can be harvested on a larger scale.

A pilot scheme has been running for two years taking trees from Northland farms, but it needs more Government support.

Two harvests of totara have been milled to test whether there's a market.

“Many farms have formidable sized trees on their land that have regrown from previously cleared land and we can harvest less than what that forest actually grows at,” Northland totara working group coordinator Paul Quinlan said.

The average age of the trees that were harvested were 83 and that's with a diameter of 50 centimetres, but with proper management the trees could be harvested a lot earlier.