A record-breaking forest plantation season will arrive at a respectable end with the autumn planting 14.09

“The record amount of trees means that plant nurseries have grown more beautiful trees, but it also means that with great planning by the foresters and the assistance of volunteer planters, all of those trees will have a place to grow in the forest. The season will end with the planting of the spruce trees, which we have done every single autumn for about ten years now,” explained Toomas Väät, Head of the Forestry Department at the State Forest Management Centre.

A total of 23 million trees were planted in state forests during the spring: 11.1 million pines, 9.3 million spruces, 2.47 million birches, 170,000 black alders and 1000 oaks. Including the trees that will be planted in the autumn, the State Forest Management Centre will surpass the 24 million mark for the first time ever, planting a total of 24.2 million trees this year.

The State Forest Management Centre’s silviculture analysis indicates that if a major drought were to occur in the spring, the trees planted in autumn would be better equipped to combat drought in certain places. Additionally, autumn planting helps mitigate the large spring workload in high planting density areas and simplifies plant maintenance. Autumn planting brings along the risk of frost heaving, which is why spruces can only be planted in mineral soil.

The State Forest Management Centre is also planting a small number of pine trees in autumn this year – first spraying the trees with animal repellent and then planting them in dry sandy soil. This will save a considerable amount of time as well as human resources.

Planting machines that have planted 440,000 trees this year will continue to operate until late autumn, in addition to planters planting tress manually: 295,000 spruce and 145,000 pine trees. The machines will operate for as long as the conditions will allow, and the state forest will add more machines to reach the necessary volumes.

Additionally, the State Forest Management Centre has afforested areas that have never had forests before – grasslands, quarries, shrubberies of low value. 345 hectares of these types of areas will have been afforested this year.

In order to accomplish the planting, contracts have been signed with more than 120 companies. During spring, more than 1700 planters were in the forest every single day.

“The spring planting flowed smoothly despite the coronavirus pandemic related restrictions,” said Väät. “We implemented special requirements in the plant warehouses as well as in the forest. Our warmest thanks and acknowledgements to all the great workers in that busy and active period! Our warmest thanks to all foresters and planters, but also to everyone who had us in their thoughts during difficult times!”

The State Forest Management Centre is investing 20 million euros into silviculture, 11.2 million of which is spent on preparing soil for planting and the cost of plants, the remaining approximate 9 million euros on maintaining the young forests.

Further information:
Toomas Väät
Head of the State Forest Management Centre’s Silviculture Division
toomas.vaat@rmk.ee
+372 520 5734