New Uprooting Machine Makes Cleaning of Sapling Stands More Effective

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"Mechanical uprooting means removing coppice with the roots. It will reduce the number of new shoots, meaning that it often will no longer be necessary to make any pre-commercial thinning. At many sites, you may get straight from uprooting to first commercial thinning," explains Jyri Schildt, chief of forest management at UPM Forest.

UPM says that it can carry out mechanical uprooting when the ground is not frozen. The working period from May to October is longer than the manual cleaning period between midsummer and late August. As such, the uprooter lightens the workload during the busy midsummer forestry season, the company adds.

"UPM has developed this method for a long time, along with other active parties. We have carried out mechanical uprooting in company forests for almost a decade now. We have generated excellent results using this form of uprooting. As a result of this development, we are now able to offer this modern and cost-efficient method to private forest owners," says Jari Engström, sales manager at UPM Forest.

Mechanical uprooting has been developed and tested in North Karelia, the home of Pentin Paja, the company that manufactures the uprooters. Next summer, UPM will use three machines equipped with an uprooter in North Savonia, as well as around a dozen machines across the whole of Finland. The number of uprooters is expected to rapidly increase over the next few years.

"Uprooting is highly recommended for seedling stands, both from a silvicultural viewpoint and a financial one. When done at the right time, uprooting is quick and the results are good. If uprooting is performed a couple of years too late, there will be growth losses, the work will be much slower, and the costs will be higher," Schildt says.

Last year, in co-operation with Risutekniikka Ky, UPM introduced a new kind of planting machine, the first to include an automatic seedling feeder. Improving the productivity of mechanical forest management is based on automation, multi-tasking, and multi-tree handling.

"Mechanical forest management offers the benefits of standardized quality and increased profitability. Furthermore, the additional devices allow the forest machines to be used year round. Mechanical forest management is a view of the future. There will be fewer forest workers in the future, and many forest owners do not have the time or the skill to tend their forests themselves," Schildt explains.