{"id":30306,"date":"2025-11-19T13:51:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T03:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=30306"},"modified":"2026-02-19T20:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T10:03:55","slug":"from-pulpwood-to-glulam-the-aussie-bluegum-as-strong-as-steel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/from-pulpwood-to-glulam-the-aussie-bluegum-as-strong-as-steel\/","title":{"rendered":"From Pulpwood to Glulam \u2014 The Aussie Bluegum as Strong as Steel!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Could Aussie Bluegums hold the key to addressing Australia&#8217;s shortage of structural timbers \u2014 and even create steel replacement products? That is the question posed by researchers behind the world&#8217;s first engineered wood products made from blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus). The new timber, described as &#8220;as strong as steel,&#8221; is part of a push by the forest products industry to turn low-value pulp into high-value mass timber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developed by WTIBeam in partnership with forest managers Australian Bluegum Plantations and OneFortyOne, the project has produced GL17 and GL18 beams \u2014 replacements for native timbers locked out by Victoria&#8217;s logging ban \u2014 and even prototypes of GL25, a grade that does not yet exist in the market. &#8220;Blue gum, globulus blue gum is uniquely a Goldilocks timber for GL18 and it&#8217;s working better than anyone could have thought,&#8221; said Edwina Goodall, owner of the multi-generational WTIBeam business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"oPF0KtHVDxE\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Splinters to Structures\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oPF0KtHVDxE?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>From pulp to progress: Australia\u2019s forestry leaders have completed a landmark DAFF\u2011funded project proving lower\u2011grade blue gum and radiata pine can power new markets in engineered wood products. Led by the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub, in partnership with FWPA and AFPA, the project has unlocked new opportunities for value\u2011added manufacturing and growth. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The work formed part of the Splinters to Structures project, a three-year research and commercialisation program delivered by Tim Woods&#8217; IndustryEdge and supported by Forest &amp; Wood Products Australia. Partners also included Australian Forest and Wood Innovations, Whiteheads Timber Sales, Australian Bluegum Plantations, OneFortyOne, Timber Training Creswick, the Queensland Government&#8217;s Salisbury Research Facility, and the Australian Forest Products Association &#8211; the country&#8217;s peak body for forest products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trials revealed that bluegum can be processed efficiently if handled quickly from forest to mill and through drying. &#8220;There was definitely a lot of doubt that bluegum would be very difficult to process and not commercially viable,\u201d said James McGregor of Whiteheads Timber Sales. \u201cBut what we found is that, done the right way and well planned, it can be very easy to process \u2014 probably as simple as most other hardwoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tests suggested the potential for GL25 \u2014 a grade that does not yet exist commercially \u2014 which could serve as a genuine steel replacement. \u201cThis has been a great project of collaboration between growers, processors in the Green Triangle, government and FWPA,\u201d said Scott Wicker of the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub. \u201cIt\u2019s been exciting because it\u2019s looked at a resource opportunity we could take instead of just sending overseas, and value-add to it here in Australia to create manufacturing jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The federal government\u2019s Agricultural Trade and Market Access Cooperation (ATMAC) program provided critical support, enabling research that transformed low-value resources into high-value finished products. \u201cThe real acceleration took place when local industry got its hands on it and, under real-world scenarios, developed advanced prototypes into new products,\u201d said Chris Lafferty, former head of research at FWPA. \u201cIt\u2019s the perfect pipeline for how R&amp;D turns into a product for the market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The environmental benefits are equally striking. \u201cThis product is strong enough to replace traditional products like concrete and steel,\u201d said Troy Sawyer, Senior Operations Leader at Australian Bluegum Plantations. \u201cUnlike concrete and steel, which produce a lot of carbon in manufacturing, this timber pulls carbon out of the atmosphere for 20 years. Then, when we produce these structural timbers, we put them into an Australian home where that carbon is locked up for the next hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And bluegum could soon have a permanent place in the engineered wood product market. \u201cAustralia is fabulous in its self-sufficiency in wood products, but only if it manufactures structural engineered wood products like glued laminated timber,\u201d said Tim Woods, who said such products are imported at a value of more than $400 million a year at the wharf, rising to nearly $800 million once installed. \u201cOur opportunity is to make these higher-value products out of lower-value resources and save the nation significant trade balance challenges in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>To learn more about how researchers are using plantation fibre to build frames, panels and modules in factories, <a href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/new-precinct-model-to-use-australian-timber-to-make-prefab-viable\/\">click here for Wood Central&#8217;s special feature on <em>The Precinct<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em> an IndustryEdge project funded by Australian Forest and Wood Innovations (AFWI), the $100 million\u2011plus Commonwealth\u2011supported research institute co\u2011matched by industry and partners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Could Aussie Bluegums hold the key to addressing Australia&#8217;s shortage of structural timbers \u2014 and even create steel replacement products? That is the question posed by researchers behind the world&#8217;s first engineered wood products made from blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus). The new timber, described as &#8220;as strong as steel,&#8221; is part of a push by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"default","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"default","_google_business_share_type":"default","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[50,113,37,33,32,46,39,85,84,54,83,59,31,56,82],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":{"0":"post-30306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-australian-capital-territory","9":"category-building-and-construction","10":"category-editors-picks","11":"category-global-news","12":"category-industry","13":"category-mass-timber","14":"category-new-south-wales","15":"category-northern-territory","16":"category-queensland","17":"category-south-australia","18":"category-tasmania","19":"category-top-stories","20":"category-victoria","21":"category-western-australia"},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jason","display_name":"Jason Ross","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30306"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32788,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30306\/revisions\/32788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30306"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=30306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}