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Millions of eucalypt and pine seedlings are being dispatched across NSW ahead of the annual State Forest planting season. Grown from seed at Forestry Corporation’s Grafton and Tumut nurseries these seedlings will provide NSW with sustainable timber resources for the future. Source: Timberbiz In coming months, the seedlings will be mostly planted by hand in recently harvested compartments, regrowing these forests with trees for the future. Forestry Corporation’s seedling stock will be supplemented with stock purchased from HQP in Queensland to produce the high-quality timber that is important to the plywood industry and used for furniture, veneer, joinery, panelling, particle board, flooring and boats. Forestry Corporation every year plants the equivalent of 14,000 football fields in plantations. Forestry Corporation’s nursery staff play a huge hand in increasing the state’s timber resources. “Our nurseries combined raise around 11 million new trees every year for the replanting of state forests across NSW. Most are grown from seed, while others are sourced externally to ensure a diverse and resilient plantation stock,” Grafton Nursery Manager Karen Morrow said. “Here in Grafton, we are currently dispatching 300,000 hardwood seedlings, 380,000 softwood seedlings and a heap of specialty seedling orders. “We have raised and dispatched 29,000 koala feed trees that will be hugely important in creating koala habitat through community and private property planting projects. “An additional 15,000 Christmas tree seedlings have just been dispatched, along with 6,000 eucalyptus seedings for a private customer and another 23,000 eucalyptus seedlings will be dispatched for planting in June,” she said. Mechanical planting of hoop pine is also set to start at Pikapene near Grafton. A large replanting program will see around 700,000 radiata seedlings planted in New England pine forests in the Walcha district. Half of those seedlings were transferred to Inverell for hardening in April, where they will stay until the plantings commence in July. Dispatch will also take place from the Tumut nursery, which focuses on radiata pine in areas like Tumut, Bombala and Bathurst. Every year NSW’s softwood plantations grow enough timber to build more than 40,000 homes a year. Hardwood forests continue to produce incredible engineered products, such as the timber interior of the Sydney Opera House, but it’s the everyday uses where the timber is most needed producing power poles, marine wharf piers, timber pallets, timber flooring, decking and furniture. Combined, the NSW forestry industry generates an estimated $2.4 billion for the economy employing 22,000 people in NSW. For more information on replanting programs and forest management visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au

Sterling Structural, a pioneer in domestically sourced and manufactured mass timber solutions in the United States, has officially joined the CLT Toolbox platform, a global design software platform that empowers structural engineers to specify timber faster, more accurately, and in line with real supplier data. Source: Timberbiz Designed to advance the adoption of sustainable timber construction across Australia, CLT Toolbox offers engineers, students, and timber enthusiasts’ access to cutting-edge tools and educational resources, empowering a new generation to contribute to a sustainable future. The platform enables education alongside design enabling engineers to use mass timber. Its mission is to make CLT design easy, accessible, and aligned with supply chain realities – broadening engineering capacity across the region. CLT Toolbox is gearing up for a major launch later this year with added modules for fire design, diaphragm design, shear walls, connection details, and much more. Sterling is the first US Cross Laminated Timber supplier to partner with CLT Toolbox, enabling engineers to design with Sterling’s panels directly within the platform. Through the beta program, users can now create designs using wall and floor calculators tailored to Sterling’s products. Sterling Structural is a division within Sterling Solutions, one of America’s leading manufacturers of sustainably sourced, domestically produced, high-quality and cost-effective Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) mats, panels and systems. “The addition of Sterling Structural’s CLT panels and systems to the Toolbox will help advance the adoption of CLT and mass timber projects across the US,” said Adam Jones, CEO of CLT Toolbox. “Sterling is a leading CLT manufacturer, and their inclusion in the Toolbox offers an immediate opportunity for engineers to incorporate CLT into their projects.” With Sterling now fully integrated, engineers can design with Sterling’s CLT and glulam products, and get: Full design integration of Sterling CLT panels Instant capacity checks and reports aligned with U.S. codes Specification-ready outputs that streamline documentation “We’re on a mission to bring mass timber to the masses, and the CLT Toolbox is an integral part of achieving that mission,” said Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass Timber at Sterling Structural. “When we make it easy to design for CLT and mass timber, we make it easy to incorporate mass timber. We’re looking forward to seeing how this new resource boosts interest and use of CLT in projects of all shapes and sizes.” This partnership comes at a critical time in US construction as developers demand lower carbon, faster, and more beautiful buildings. Sterling’s presence on CLT Toolbox brings scalable, modern tools into the hands of structural engineers unlocking the full potential of mass timber design.