Murray Russ from Russ Firewood in Landsdowne Road has supplied firewood and sawdust to the region for more than eight years and believes the valuable resource is set to become scarce over the coming years.
On his 100 acre farm he runs dairy beef cattle, deer and a small amount of cropping, having come to the farm after leaving school 25 years ago. Back then they milked cows and over the years they have run pigs, grown outside tomatoes, pumpkins and onions. He has also spent 16 seasons contract mowing for silage and the last three seasons heading contracting for barley. Ten years ago they leased part of the farm to an uncle to put up a sawmill and have since moved into firewood and sawdust over the last eight years.
"This time of the year we sell sawdust to dairy farmers for bedding for their calf sheds, and radiata sawdust is used in glasshouses as a growing medium, they use it fresh," he said. "All sawdust from us is totally untreated, the only treatment it has had is the saw blade."
The aged sawdust is popular with organic producers for digging in, mulching and moisture retention as a cover around the base of plants preventing weed growth and discouraging slugs and snails.
The fresh sawdust, mainly douglas fir, is also becoming popular with mills to fire their furnaces. When the Richmond MDF plant begins producing veneer its requirements will place greater pressure on available supplies of fresh sawdust.
"We have a good supply of sawdust both new and aged at the moment, and have noticed a large increase in the amount of inquires for it."
