That's great to know, all the Paulownia I've seen have been as I described, a picture of a good plantation would be good to see. My trees are so totally outclassed by the good quality Eucalyptus spp I grow nearby that perhaps I'm just biased in views. I would imagine there would be some prime paulownia growing sites in Nuhaka, the trees really like horticultural quality sites with high summer moisture and no wind. Good fertility helps a lot too. Most of the trees planted around this way back in the day ended up on dry windy hillsides where (in hindsight) they had no chance of performing. We had the same problems with Robinia, that were sold to farmers as hardy trees which is true to a point, but actually only do any good in horticultural quality sites. Usually those best hort quality sites get used for something like kiwifruit with much higher returns than timber.
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