Clear-felling – an eternal ecocycle

When the forest is between 60 and 120 years old, it is ripe for harvest. Before the regeneration harvest, we make careful preparations for the area that is to be felled – so-called site planning.

The planning means that we decide how the area will be harvested, how the machines will operate to protect soil and water and what nature considerations, basic retention, we will take. We also find out the need for new or upgraded forest roads. It is also now that we plan what regeneration measures we will take to secure the next generation of forest.

Considerations for regeneration felling

Regeneration felling is the measure that has the greatest impact on the environment, but by taking good care, you can protect endangered species and sometimes the measures can even strengthen diversity. Consideration is always adjusted to what it looks like at the time of the current felling.

Some examples of consideration

• We leave edge zones by streams and other watercourses. The trees that are saved provide shade so that the water temperature does not rise. They also drop dead needles and leaves into the watercourses and this becomes food for various small insects, which in turn become food for fish. The edge zone itself is also important for species that thrive in the moist forest environment around watercourses.
• We leave certain areas untouched, so-called consideration areas, such as swamp forests and sourdrag (wet areas). These areas often house valuable plants and animals that are sensitive to disturbances.
• We leave groups of trees. Saved trees make a big difference for different species that require special substrates/habitats to survive. These can be, for example, old or large trees, such as large aspens or pines with damage from previous fires. We also save groups of trees to avoid large bare areas.
• We save dead trees, both standing and those lying on the ground, since a number of species depend on dead wood.
• We ensure that new dead wood is formed by cutting trees to high stumps, which are approximately three meters high.
• We protect ancient and cultural remains such as trap pits, burial mounds and coal beds. Around the remains, we create 1.3 meter high cultural stumps that signal to the drivers of forestry machinery that they should not drive there. We also make sure to cut down trees that grow on the remains so that the trees do not blow down and cause damage.
• If we need to build a forest road before the felling, we make sure to take nature into account even then. This includes planning so that the road does not pass through areas with high natural values ​​and protecting streams, lakes and wetlands.

Read more about basic retention here

After harvesting, we prepare the land so that new forest can grow there. Through soil scarification, we create a better growing environment for the plants. They get a warmer place to grow, less competition from vegetation and better access to nutrients and water.

Most of all soil scarification is done with mounding, where the soil scarification machine creates mounds of inverted peat with mineral soil, which gives the plants an extra good start. Harrows and in some cases even excavators are also used to prepare the soil. The soil scarification season runs between May and the end of October.

Consideration during soil scarification

Lakes, watercourses and wetlands are protected from sediment and nutrient leaching by leaving edge zones and not preparing land near them. Consideration is also given to the coarse dead wood that was left behind as a nature consideration when the area was harvested.

Catch pits, coal beds and other ancient and cultural remains are protected by the cultural stumps that were created during regeneration logging. The stumps are approximately 1.3 meters high and signal to soil scarification drivers that they should not drive there. In addition, the machines are in most cases equipped with a warning system that alerts the driver when the machine comes close to a remains.

After soil scarification, it is time to ensure that the next generation of forest grows up. There are different ways to create new forest: planting, sowing and self-rejuvenation.

• Planting is the most common and clearly the most effective way. This way, you earn a year of growth right from the start and, above all, the forest will grow much better throughout the entire rotation period. Today, you can choose seedlings that grow up to 25 percent better than forests that have self-rejuvenated. You can also choose protection against pine beetles. All seedlings come from our own treee nurseries Bogrundet and Wifstamon. 
• In self-rejuvenation, we leave so-called seed trees behind when the final felling is carried out and they are allowed to remain for between five and fifteen years.
• We do not use seed sowing very often on our land. When we do, it is mainly contorta pine.

Considerations while planting

We do not plant near lakes and streams, nor under the crown of nature value trees (older trees left behind during regeneration felling). We also make sure not to plant on paths or on ancient and cultural remains.

About two years after planting, we check how the plants are growing in our own forest. If the plants have suffered extensive damage or if they have not grown as expected, we can make a support plan or redo the entire planting.

We also carry out regrowth checks for private forest owners who have purchased our "Planting with rejuvenation guarantee" service.

When the forest is about 10 years old, it is usually time for pre-commercial thinning (clearing). Some trunks are removed and those that are left behind are given better conditions to grow. It is a bit like thinning in the carrot field. Clearing gives better quality to the future forest and better economics when it is time to thin.

When clearing, we have great opportunities to influence the future forest. We can clear in several rounds depending on the need.

Considerations at pre-commercial thinning

When clearing, we leave buffer zones by streams and other watercourses. We also leave buffer zones by marshes and farmland. When clearing, we leave rowan, aspen and willow as well as other flowering trees and shrubs. We can also create areas with a lot of deciduous trees in wetter areas.

In addition, we clear freely around nature value trees, i.e. older trees that were left during regeneration felling, and we clear away all trunks around ancient and cultural remains. Otherwise, there is a risk that the remains will be damaged in the long term, if trees growing next to them are blown over and become uprooted. We also make sure to clear along paths.

When the forest is about 40 years old, it is time for thinning. We then remove weaker trees with lower quality and leave the finest trunks. The trees that remain receive more light, nutrients and water and continue to grow to provide more valuable timber for regeneration felling. We usually thin out once or twice.

Considerations when thinning

When thinning, we take into account largely the same type of basic retention as when performing regeneration felling. For example, at streams and lakes, buffer zones are always left untouched or a selective felling is done where some trees are picked out, especially tall and wind-sensitive trees.

In the right areas, fertilization is an effective and profitable way to make the forest grow faster. We fertilize selected forests with the help of a helicopter between May and September, which is the period when the trees absorb a lot of nutrients. We can fertilize up to three times, with an interval of 10 years. The last fertilization is done about 10 years before regeneration felling.

We use fertilizer that contains nitrogen and lime. The lime in the fertilizer prevents the soil from becoming acidic, and the nitrogen acts as fertilizer, making the soil more fertile for a while after fertilization.

Consideration at fertilization

We leave protection zones towards, for example, lakes, watercourses, wetlands, formally protected land, privates properties, other people's forests and roads. We fertilize using a helicopter and the helicopter's GPS equipment ensures that the fertilizer change is automatically closed when the helicopter flies over an area that is not to be fertilized.

Research shows that the environmental impact of fertilization is minimal and that fertilization only causes small changes in the ground vegetation. For example, the proportion of grass increases if it is already present in the stand and blueberries increase if there is no grass, while lingonberries increase if there are no blueberries. After five to ten years, it is usually not possible to register any differences in the ground vegetation between fertilized and unfertilized forests.

After 60-120 years, it is time for regeneration felling again. Then the endless ecocycle begins again.