Mechanised silviculture technologies being profiled

Friday 29 Sep 2023

 
ForestTECH is this region’s premier forestry technology series. It’s been going now for 17 years. It’s the one forestry technology event every year that brings together forest resource managers, inventory foresters, remote sensing, GIS, mapping and forest inventory specialists and researchers from throughout Australasia.

For the last three years, tree crop, forest establishment and silvicultural managers have also been actively involved with data capture technologies moving beyond mature stands to pre-and post-planting operations.

In the last 3-4 years, there has been a resurgence of interest being shown by forestry companies in Australasia on mechanised or automated operations for planting and silviculture.

The economics are now starting to stack up. The technology addresses the growing issue of labour shortages that are being faced over the planting season. Mechanised or machine planting is already successfully being used across Scandinavia, Brazil, the USA, Canada and more recently, New Zealand and Australia.

Operational trials have successfully been undertaken in Australasia and now commercial planting is being undertaken in both the central North Island, New Zealand and in Victoria, Australia.

Key presentations at ForestTECH 2023 include;

1. Lessons from two planting seasons in Victoria using a fully mechanised planting operation – results, lessons and payback from a forest owner’s and contractor’s perspective

2. A new concept in mechanised planting. Results from the first Australasian trials by Pan Pac Forest Products using the Swedish designed and produced PlantMax mechanised planter

3. Results from operational trials using remote controlled mechanised tree pruning

4. Using smart phone and drone collected data to improve the quality and productivity of Chilean mechanised thinning operations

In addition to the conference programme and trade exhibitions, a series of pre-and post-conference workshops have been set up for ForestTECH 2023 delegates in both countries. Workshop details can be found here.

Full programme details and further information for the NZ leg of the series (14-15 November) and for the Australian event, one week later (21-22 November) can be found on the event website, www.foresttech.events/ft23



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