home
douglas fir
giant redwood
pinus ponderosa
corsican pine & cypress
new zealand natives
contact us
Download our current stocklist of seed now:
Dusky Forest Seed
Dusky Forest Seed is a business arm of Ernslaw One Ltd, a plantation forest owner with 100,000ha in various locations around New Zealand.
Who are we?
Dusky Forest forms part of Blue Mountain Forest and is located in West Otago. It is a mixture of plantation and indigenous forest, with the earliest stands established in 1900 with seedlings from Tapanui nursery (see picture above, since dis-established 1980's).
Seed has been regularly collected from stands in the Blue Mountains for many decades. Douglas-fir seed in particular has been collected from seed stands for restocking purposes since 1990 under Ernslaw one Ltd, and prior to that under the Forest Service. Recently the collection has been extended to a number of other exotic species, including Giant redwood, and Ponderosa pine, and also native species from the considerable area of indigenous forest, scrubland and grassland Ernslaw One administers in Otago and Southland in particular, but also elsewhere in our forest estate.
There has been a steady increase in demand for seed from native species, especially the tussocks and beeches, and while this has been collected principally to supply our nursery in Oamaru, Oregon Nurseries Ltd, we are extending this to meet demand from nurseries elsewhere.
Seed supplied by us will always be clean, viable, and fresh (or if stored, then frozen) and of the correct seedlot for the area it is to be planted. However, a lot of the native seed cannot be stored and can only be supplied fresh. In contrast, most conifer seed can be kept at -10 C for decades without losing viability.
Our Seed Orchard Manager is Lance Freer. Lance has had a long association with the forest industry,
commencing work with the NZ Forest Service in the 1960's.
We also have a formal business relationship with Tree Improvement Enterprises in Cottage Grove, Oregon, USA.
Jerry Barnes, the proprietor of TIE has joint venture seed orchards with us, and we mutually import/export
seed between our two businesses.
