ForestTECH 2022 run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA), reaches new heights with over 300 delegates attending the end of the year technology series. The Foresttech series ran for the first time in three years in both Rotorua, New Zealand, and Melbourne, Australia, following the Covid induced travel and meeting limitations. The business community (including resource managers, inventory foresters, data collectors, mappers, and GIS specialists, tree crop managers, and those involved in forest establishment) showed up in large numbers.
Forestry companies from all over Australia, Japan, China, Indonesia, and Malaysia also met in person. Remote participation included Sweden, Finland, Brazil, Chile, USA, Canada, and live streaming from the New Zealand leg of the series. This, along with similar attendance over the previous few years, further solidifies the series’ current international stature.
Since 2020, the cross over between new data collection technologies for forest estate reporting and operational planning and precision forestry innovations around forest establishment, Mechanised Planting and tree crop management have meant that these two major themes have been combined into the one single event. For ForestTECH 2022, the same divide, which was based on delegate input from the last online event held in February 2022, was once again employed very well. Four pre- and post-conference workshops as well as an exhibition were offered to attendees in addition to the conference.
Technology Updates
- Trial results and key lessons from 2022 commercial mechanised planting operations with pine and eucalypts in Australia
- Results from 2022 trials using hydrogels at the time of planting to extend the planting season
- Insights into how fleets of mechanised planting machines are being employed across steeper slopes in South America
- How GPS planting spades being used commercially this year have performed
- New Scandinavian mechanised planting systems being used in Sweden and North America.
- Opportunities in switching from the traditional excavator to forwarder base units
- Innovations in GNSS. Recent advances in satellite-based corrections to assist in field mapping, data capture and activity reporting
- Commercial use of hyperspectral imagery (SWIR and NIR) in Forestal Arauco Chilean forests and nursery operations
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