From seedlings to oil.

MCWA has a comprehensive R&D program to support the company’s push into areas of unchartered farming as we grow an irrigated eucalyptus oil crop. This program includes working with the West Australian government to develop a eucalyptus oil breeding program.

MCWA has established over 1.6 million irrigated eucalyptus trees in the two years since its 2019 acquisition of Waslee Downs and a further 100,000 unirrigated trees. The pivot irrigation uses leading edge technology to allow controlled fertigation of the crop as well as precise application of water. Whilst this approach to farming eucalyptus is “frontier farming” it has proved successful as we are now into our second harvest season and experiencing improving oil yields as the crops leaf to stick ratio improves.

Once the harvested material has had the eucalyptus oil distilled from it, the material is returned to the fields as a mulch to reduce evaporation, control weeds and return nutrients and carbon to the soil as it breaks down.

Two productive deep bores provide the farm with excellent water security. The water is applied by pivot irrigation which can be remotely controlled. The pivot irrigation is combined with a state of the art fertigation set up.

The eucalyptus trees are mechanically harvested annually with a purpose built harvest front. The 2021 harvest represents the second cut for the first trees planted in 2019.

The distillery set up borrows heavily from Main Camp’s experience on the east coast. Initially the distillery has been set up to “cook” in the harvest chaser bins. However, as the harvest volumes grow, the distillery will be switched across to larger batch processing of harvested material.

Once the eucalyptus oil has been distilled from the crop it is carefully stored on site at Waslee Downs before shipment to our customers.

The sales and marketing for our eucalyptus oil is led by Maxime Deleu and he can be approached for a quote for the supply of our oil at any time.