Worldwide desire for mechanised planting
Bracke Forest has achieved an international breakthrough with its planting machine. Now the head is being launched with a bigger carousel that can hold 180 plants compared with the previous 80.
“The machine has been tested in Indonesia for a year,” says Bracke’s CEO Hans Hemmingsson. “The plants grow 25 percent faster than when they’re put in by hand."
Mechanised planting is increasingly in demand. Although it does not cut costs very much compared with today’s manual methods, it does solve a growing problem.
“In Sweden it is harder and harder to get hold of people to do the planting,” Hans says.
The company has integrated several functions into the latest version of its planting head, which is used with a boom. As well as doing the actual planting, the machine adds water, fertilizer, and pesticide when applicable. The result is a higher survival rate and better growth. In consequence, this technology is of interest even in countries like Indonesia where low-cost workers are readily available.
The technology has also made a breakthrough in Canada but for a different reason.
“Their clear-cut areas are in worse shape that we are used to here in Sweden, with a lot of slash, uprooted stumps and other hazards. As a result, occupational safety laws forbid manual planting,” Hans explains.
At Elmia Wood, Bracke Forest also presented what is currently the world’s largest disc trencher. It is a four-row machine that weighs six tonnes. Bracke thought it would be too heavy for existing forest machines and increase their fuel consumption.
“We made a prototype and discovered that the fuel consumption only increased by twenty percent but capacity went up by eighty percent,” Hans says. “In other words, the new scarifier saves large amounts of time and fuel.”