DELEGATES at the recent Australian Forest Growers national conference in Albury-Wodonga visited agroforestry ventures in North East Victoria, MARGRIT BEEMSTER reports

The stands of Camden white gum on Graeme Norman's North East Victorian property might be a long way from home but they are thriving.

    AT A GLANCE
  • Who: Graeme Norman
  • What: agroforestry
  • Why: rare species thrives.
  • Where: Wangaratta, Victoria

Tall and smooth-barked, the species is listed as vulnerable nationally, even in its usual habitat southwest of Sydney,

So it is reassuring to find it flourishing on Graeme's Springfield property, Springfield, at Londrigan near Wangaratta.

"It was all a bit of an experiment," Graeme said.

Graeme is a fourth generation farmer who has lived in the area all his life. He and wife Pam farm 345ha and run a commercial herd of 350 Angus beef cattle.

The 5ha plantation of white gums was planted six years ago as part of a Heartlands project funded by the Natural Heritage Trust.

It is one of five sites in Victoria used by the Arthur Rylah Institute to study the effects on biodiversity of various designs of understorey.

At Springfield, understorey species such as acacia, callistemon and melaleuca were planted in either blocks or strips within the plantation.

The site was prepared by burning in 2001, then deep-ripped in April 2002, and sprayed in June before planting mid-July of that year.

"When we put the trees in it was as dry as chips," Graeme, who watered the trees once, said.

"We did lose a bit the first year, so we replanted the year after.

"As far as I know, very few, if any, Camden white gums have been planted in this area."

He said the trees had grown fairly well.

"If you compare them with the planting of indigenous species (red gum, red box, yellow box and grey box), I planted in the paddock alongside at the same time, there's not a great difference in how they have performed."

Some of the trees have been conventionally pruned while others have been left to grow with no or minimal pruning.

Graeme is no stranger to growing trees and estimates he has planted 25,000 trees, mostly for windbreaks, biodiversity corridors and for firewood.

Arthur Rylah Institute's terrestrial ecology manager, Richard Loyn, has been studying the use of the trial sites by birds, bats and arboreal mammals such as possums and gliders.

"We found the number of forest and woodland birds using the plantations was much higher than in farmland, and we were starting to get some indications that the shrub treatments were useful, particularly when rows of shrubs were planted together as a belt or block," Richard said.

The researchers also found insectivorous bats were making more use of the sites than open farmland.