Forest Products Commission, WA

🌱 Growing strong at FPC's West Manjimup Nursery 🌱

Our West Manjimup Nursery is now into the plant tending stage of the year, where our young pine seedlings get the care they need to thrive. This includes regular watering, fertilising and applying treatments to support healthy early growth.💦

This year the team has sown 4.9 million seedlings, supported by ideal growing conditions - warm days and plenty of sunshine! This will help us continue to supply essential timber products for the WA community for years to come. 🏡

As well as tending the pine seedlings, the Manjimup crew are busy processing approximately approx. 2.3 million sandalwood seeds, collected late last year in Kojonup thanks to a fantastic joint effort between seasonal contract staff and FPC leaders. This includes cleaning and dehusking the seeds in preparation for regeneration planting as part of FPC’s ‘Operation Woylie’ sandalwood regeneration program.

This year, FPC proudly supported the 16 Days in WA campaign, standing together to stop family and domestic violence. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

In line with the theme “Stopping Family and Domestic Violence: Play Your Part”, we partnered with Harbour Refuge and Support Services in South West WA to provide essential products that provide support for women and children affected by FDV. 🤝

Giving back strengthens communities but also our own sense of wellbeing. 🧘

As we celebrate the festive season, FPC encourages everyone to act, belong and commit to things in your community that you care about – because together, we can create safer, stronger communities. 🧡

As the year ends, we’re proud to celebrate a year of hard work, innovation and collaboration across all our sites.🌲💪

In FY25, FPC achieved $114 million in forest product sales and our Softwood Plantation Investment Program continued to thrive.💲

During 2025, we secured eight new plantation properties and planted 5.5 million seedlings with the help of good seasonal conditions. 🌱 🌱

This success shows our commitment to ongoing innovation and efficiency - enhanced by the introduction of the new TTA MidiPacker at our nursery and another year of mechanical planting, which significantly boosted productivity.

We also signed a new Heritage Agreement, working with Traditional Owners in the Goldfields to strengthen our understanding of Aboriginal culture and ensuring respectful treatment of cultural heritage values.

Safety remained our top priority as we launched our Critical Risk Management Program that aims to reduce injuries and focus on keeping everyone safe. 🦺

These achievements reflect the passion, commitment and teamwork of our incredible team, ensuring that we continue to keep our forests healthy and supply essential timber products for the WA community for years to come. 🏡

Wishing you all a TREEmendous festive season and a prosperous new year! 🎆

Right now, in Manjimup we’re preparing our seeds ready to begin their journey to being planted next spring for the 2026 planting program.

In 2026, we’ll be planting more than 4.4 million Pinus radiata and 128,000 Pinus pinaster species of pine. 🌱🌱🌱

The planting program is crucial to further expanding FPC’s softwood plantation estate, which is ensuring future timber supply for WA's housing and construction industry, enabling carbon sequestration, and reducing pressure on natural forests. 🏠🌲

We will be fertilising and tending to the seedlings until dispatch in late May/June. 🌱

📢 Spring is the perfect time to spot . If you’re out in the bush and see bright yellow spores and lesions on foliage and buckled or twisted leaves, don’t touch it – take a photo and report via the MyPestGuide® Reporter at https://bit.ly/3KYKZvg or contact the Pest and Disease Information Service (PaDIS) on phone: (08) 9368 3080 or email: [email protected] 🙏

Keep an eye out for myrtle rust next time you’re bushwalking 🥾👀

Myrtle rust is a serious fungal disease that has been detected just once in a very remote part of northern WA. It’s not widespread, and with your help, we can keep it that way! 🙌

Myrtle rust infects plants in the Myrtaceae family – like eucalyptus, bottlebrush, and Geraldton wax – eventually killing them.

The FPC is embracing ! 🤩 We’re trialling remote sensing technology and applications at our newly established plantations, producing a digital twin and useful information to improve plantation management and activities. Some facts about remote sensing technology 🤓:

#1 Visuals captured by commercial-grade drone has a resolution of 0.5 cm to 1 cm, smaller than the size of an average human fingernail! 😮

#2 Advanced Deep Learning algorithms applied to the drone-captured visuals can automatically, accurately detect individual pine seedlings 🌱

To help us deliver a digital twin and precision forestry, FPC Remote Sensing and IT teams will continue to explore, trial, and adopt the latest technology 🌲

FPC Forest Genetics and Silviculture teams and staff volunteers recently came together to plant 7,000 seedlings for an advanced pine genetics breeding trial. 🌱

The seedlings grew at our nursery from individually sown seeds that originated from superior parents, provided through the FPC’s membership to Tree Breeding Australia 🤝

We’ll be keeping an eye on them to spot seedlings that grow into pine trees with exceptional qualities, such as resilience, branching, stem straightness, wood quality, and a good growth rate. 🌲 These ones will be clonally captured for potential future FPC seed orchards to supply the best pine seeds for WA conditions.

We’re proud to partner with Water Corporation to plant close to 2 million 🌲 pine trees 🤩, helping to fight climate change and producing sustainable timber for future homes in WA! 💚

Millions of pines planted to target net zero We've taken a further step towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, establishing pine plantations in WA's South West to help offset carbon emissions.

Today’s … but life happens every day, so any day is ok to check in with people around you. At the FPC, we’re all about looking out for one another 🤝

A meaningful conversation could potentially change a life, so speak to fellow colleagues, family, and friends to see if they're ok and if not, encourage them to seek help –> www.ruok.org.au 💛