The founding document for this Vision recognised that, to be successful, the plantation and processing industries would need to operate in the “global” market place, in a manner that was internationally competitive, commercially oriented and market focussed. In their statement of the Vision, the Implementation Committee recognised that the additional area would only be achieved if new participants were encouraged to become forest owners but that the information which would allow them to assess this opportunity was lacking, outside current forest owners and forest products processors. The first goal to improve information flows was to “Provide growers with log specifications and anticipated prices”. Some progress has been made towards disseminating price information through the ANU Forestry Marketing Report, another JVAP funded project. However interpretation of this valuable source of information is hampered by a lack of understanding among potential forest growers as to how “logs” are defined in the market place and of the principles which drive these definitions of quality.
The aim of this report is to clarify these issues and to explain, in lay terms, what constitutes a saleable log and why some logs are more valuable than others. It will aid potential growers to more realistically assess whether forestry will be viable in their situation and inform those already attempting to manage forest crops of the most valuable products types and their specifications.