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Manuka - Ticks a Lot of Boxes - by Ben Gaia, www.dialatree.co.nz
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The Manuka Boom
Over the last few years there has been one of those huge trendy booms across New Zealand: growing Manuka trees for the oil and for high value honey.
Priorities move on as the years go by. Some companies have invested in fabulous huge plantations for future harvests. And now a new product: the payments obtainable for carbon credits by reforestation with native plants, ensures that land owners who plant a few hectares of manuka can get that annual carbon cheque as well, while watching their investment grow.
But if that oil/honey market is fairly saturated, we must not forget there are other uses for this native agro-forestry wonder tree. Medicinal antiseptic oil, medicinal honey; also insect repellent oil and even perfume. Remember the wood! The hardwood, though slow growing, is dense and strong. As well as the well known country-wide use for smoking fish, the wood chips or logs of sustainably grown manuka can produce a high heat when dried and burnt in a wood stove. They compare well with Gum and Rata, burning hotter than all but the hottest hardwoods. Another traditional local use for a local native resource.
Manuka bushes in full early summer bloom, Westland
Manuka Timber
Beyond firewood the larger grades of manuka and kanuka have produced posts, strainers and yard rails, up and down the land since pioneer times, and they still do in the back blocks. Now with manuka readily available as a forestry tree, we can grow our own non-toxic hardwood vine posts for sustainable harvest. Then all the other uses are bonus by-products. Also as a shelter belt, hedges for cattle, sheep, horses, they all like its shade, and nibbling the tips to quell their rumbling bellies.
It's pioneer living but one better: if you plant and grow your own manuka it becomes a renewable resource; not just an Alaskan-style plundering of the bush. There are many other native hardwoods that fit this niche in fact, such as pigeonwood, beech, karaka, and others used in the past in the round for fencing on the bush block.
There is no reason why you should not grow manuka for timber: the only limit is time as it is slow to produce anything of large diameter. No matter! Turning wood can be used from branches and small stems for banisters, spindles, chair legs and so on. Small diameter hardwood furniture legs, pepperpots, and pieces of art such as chessmen look amazing in finely finished, polished manuka, with its deep reddish tones and fine grain.
Book up your plants
With such a boom and bust cycle operating it can be hard to find good manuka plants. There are a lot of desperate leggy ones to be had for a dollar or two, putting the nursery out of pocket and sometimes too big to successfully transplant very well. You want to pre-book a certain size and price of plant, up to about 30 or 40 cm is ideal. Small bushy plants can be stronger at recovering than long lanky ones. They are suited to plug planting for minimum root disturbance.They can be planted quite closely for most purposes - say 1200 stems per hectare, or just mixed in with other native trees and shrubs in a forest restoration or new planting. Some plantations are trialling rows or hedges of manuka which can be trimmed by tractor for the green leaves for oil. Some are even grazed in between by sheep in an "alley cropping" design which keeps the plantation open, weed free and exposes the trees to greater sunlight than a dense forest.
They do not like hard frosts such as exposed mountainsides, or very dry areas, and they can handle wetter feet than gorse, but not permanent water. They are ideal for gullies and riverbanks, and even swampy areas. With fertiliser their growth will surge ahead. Even if in nature they like hard ground, a bit of nutrient help will also see them thrive happily.
Trays of baby manukas at Dialatree Nursery
We grow fruit and timber trees in the extreme climate of the South Island. Explore our mail order nursery for organic fruit and forestry trees.
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