Another event concluded successfully with over 300 delegates attending the end of year technology series Foresttech 2023 run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA). However, owing to the recent Covid travel and meeting restrictions, the ForestTECH series ran for the first time in three years in both Rotorua, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia. The industry (resource managers, inventory foresters, data capture, mapping and GIS specialists, tree crop managers and those involved in forest establishment) really turned out in force.

As well as meeting face to face, forestry companies from across Australia, Japan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia. Brazil, Chile, USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland and Latvia participated remotely with live streaming being offered from the NZ leg of the series. This in addition to similar turnouts over the last few years, again reinforces the international standing that this annual forestry technology series now has.

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. This same split, based on delegate feedback from the last on-line event run in February 2022, was again used very effectively for ForestTECH 2022. In addition to the conference, exhibitions and four pre-and post-conference workshops were also run for on-site delegates.

Technology Updates

1. Trial results and key lessons from 2022 commercial mechanised planting operations with pine and eucalypts in Australia
2. Results from 2022 trials using hydrogels at the time of planting to extend the planting season
3. Insights into how fleets of mechanised planting machines are being employed across steeper slopes in South America
4. How GPS planting spades being used commercially this year have performed
5. New Scandinavian mechanised planting systems being used in Sweden and North America. Opportunities in switching from the traditional excavator to forwarder base units
6. Innovations in GNSS. Recent advances in satellite-based corrections to assist in field mapping, data capture and activity reporting
7. Commercial use of hyperspectral imagery (SWIR and NIR) in Forestal Arauco Chilean forests and nursery operations

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