About Us

Tree Breeding Australia Limited (TBA) (established in 1983 originally as Southern Tree Breeding Association) provides services to the plantation forestry sector in the area of tree breeding and genetics. There are many moving parts to breeding programs, including strategy, operational activities, genomic selection, analytical activities and research for innovation. TBA undertakes all these activities for Member programs and assists other clients with their own breeding programs by providing services and advice as needed. We use a web-based system to store and manage breeding data and our clients can access these systems to support their decision making needs.  

TBA is a Member based, not-for-profit company (limited by guarantee) that assists plantation forestry by improving commercially important traits to improve productivity and profit. Members pay annually to support the budgets which fund the breeding programs for Radiata Pine (Pinus radiata) and Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus).  Refer to Tree Breeding for more detail.

TBA also provides genetic evaluation services to other clients who run their own tree breeding programs and use the TBA suite of integrated software tools and systems for improving their outcomes. Refer to Genetic Improvement for more detail.

Australian plantation estate information (2020):

• Australia’s total commercial plantation area in 2018–19 was 1,933,400 hectares (ha)
• Softwood plantation estates
  • Radiata Pine is the dominant softwood grown (74.5 %) on about 775,000 ha in Australia, targeting largely structural timber markets
  • Southern Pine is the second largest softwood estate (15 %) with about 156,000 ha in Australia, also targeting largely structural timber markets
• Hardwood plantations
  • Blue Gum plantations are the dominant hardwood grown (50 %) on about 445,000 ha. This major hardwood species is grown on shorter rotations and mainly targets chips for pulp and paper products.
  • Shining Gum (Eucalyptus nitens) is the second largest hardwood grown (26.4 %) on about 234,000 ha., also largely targeting pulp and paper products.