About 100 people gathered at Mata do Braça, in Lousã, to learn about the results of the initiative and operationalization project of CoLAB ForestWISE, rePLANT.
Municipalities, forest owners, associations, companies and academia saw up close the innovations such as multifunctional and precision implements, more resilient and productive pine species and provenances, mobile applications for measuring wood piles and the incorporation of automation and sensing systems.
In the case of multifunctional implements, The Navigator Company and Fravizel have introduced the ARG (Alfaia Riper Grade), a partial soil mobilization implement that is cheaper to implement and has less environmental impact. This new technology allows greater versatility and robustness in the installation of new plantations and in forest management, the possibility of reducing the area of soil mobilization and erosion, and increasing infiltration and water retention.
For its part, the Instituto Superior de Agronomia and Sonae Arauco have conducted trials in different species and provenances of pine used in improvement programs in other countries, such as Australia, Portugal, France and Spain, with proven genetic gains. The advantages include greater availability of plants for reforestation activities and more resistant and productive plants.
Based on the need for faster and cheaper forest management, CoLAB ForestWISE has been testing smartphone applications to measure wood piles. Several benefits stand out from their use, including decreasing data collection time and associated costs, facilitating access to more users, and allowing access to real-time data and automatic results reporting.
LiDAR technology, on the other hand, allows recording the tillage depth, the planting line, and the soil profile, enabling the integration of shared terrain information in real time.
Structured in three major areas of action: Forest and Fire Management, Risk Management and Circular Economy and Value Chains, rePLANT has an investment of 5.6 million euros, supported by Compete/Portugal 2020, through the POCI and Lisbon 2020 programs. This project is led by The Navigator Company, with technical and scientific coordination by CoLAB ForestWISE.
In, Ambiente Magazine, 27 March 2023 (PT)
