This Sunday 30 July is National Tree Day and VicForests is taking the opportunity to share its work in growing seedlings and collecting seeds for its forest regeneration works with the community.

VicForests has planted about 1.25 million seedlings and has about 15 tonnes of seed in storage for future regeneration works.

VicForests has collected over 40 tonnes of seeds since its inception and is the largest owner of eucalyptus seed in the world.

VicForests Regeneration Forester, Martin Hames, says since 2011, about 25,000 hectares of native forest have been sown with new seed.

“We used a whopping 3.6 billion seeds for this,” Mr Hames said.

Mr Hames said VicForests collects seed from harvesting operations but also employs arborists to climb trees to collect seed.

“The seed is then refrigerated and can be stored for around 20-30 years to also help forest regeneration activities such as after the bushfires of 2006-07, 2009 and 2019-20. Over the course of these fires, VicForests provided seed for the sowing of 19,000 hectares of forest that was unable to regenerate from repeated bushfires on its own,” Mr Hames said.

Another VicForests Regeneration Forester, Karen Doherty, said VicForests had been involved in the planting of well over 1 million seedlings as part of its forest regeneration works.

“VicForests are now also trialling drone-based sowing to help us regenerate those hard to access areas,” she said.