Case study
If you are using keyboard commands, use Tab to move through the media player controls and the Spacebar to activate them. The voice-over script for this video is shown in text underneath.
Hi, I'm Matt, and I'm the timber orderman in a retail timber yard.
The species I've chosen for this task is blackbutt, often called 'coastal blackbutt', to distinguish it from New England blackbutt, which grows further inland.
It's botanical name is Eucalyptus pilularis, and it grows most commonly in the coastal forests of New South Wales, and through to Maryborough in Queensland.
Most blackbutt comes from native forests – often regrowth forests – where the trees have grown back after the area was previously harvested.
There are also several large plantation forests, and their number is steadily increasing.
Blackbutt grows to a height of 30 to 40 metres. It prefers poor sandy soils in high rainfall areas near the coast.
Although hardwoods are still way behind softwoods in terms of plantation investment, blackbutt has actually been grown in plantations since the 1950s, and its quality is continuing to improve as a source of high grade timber.