Farm Forestry for Fine Woodworking — With Rowan Reid

Rowan Reid is an agroforester from the southeast of Australia. He’s been planting and growing trees since the 1980s, and spurring forestry and fine woodworking in a region that didn’t have a whole lot of it. Today we talked about Australia’s forest types, eucalypts, pruning timber trees, reaction wood, pine plantations, growing your own lumber to build your own house, keeping sawblades sharp, The Master Tree Grower Program, and farm networking to share ideas and perspectives.A huge thanks to Rowan for joining us from Australia. If you’re interested in growing timber trees, you have to go read Rowan’s book Heartwood: The Art and Science of Growing Trees for Conservation and Profit. It’s is both highly informative and accessible. It’s tangible use case in planting, pruning, and harvesting trees on farms, for both use on the farm and local or regional sales of value-added wood products. Rowan really exemplifies how with a great knowledge base and a great network, you can make farm forestry work really well.