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Tree Planting Machine For Open Peat Land

The total forest area in Finland is 25 million hectares, 9.7 million of which are peat land. In 1969, about 318,000 hectares of peat land were drained for forestry by 91,000 kilometers of ditches. Some 10 percent of Finland's peat land, roughly 1. million hectares, are wet open swamplands. The demand for raw wood by the forest industry exceeds the annual increment of the forests, making the afforestation of open swamps an important issue. Last year, approximately 20,000 hectares of open swampland were afforested. The afforested area is expected to increase rapidly in the near future. Three quarters of last year's afforestation was done by planting and one quarter by direct seeding.. A shortage of labor in the planting season and the fact that labor costs are rising faster than machine costs have made it necessary to mechanize tree planting. Among the 14 types of tree planting machines used or tested in Finland, the MARA tree planter is the only one designed for afforestation of open peat swamplands.


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Author(s): S. E. Appelroth

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Volume 22, Number 3 (1971)

Volume: 22

Number: 3