Natural reforestation

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Sustainable and natural reforestation with the Moritz mini felling tractor

Project progress | December 2021 to July 2024

The area to be reforested has increased significantly in recent years. This is due to drought, bark beetles, storms and forest fires. Pfanzelt will demonstrate how to naturally reforest without large equipment in a large-scale project that will be carried out over several years.

The site is located directly on the KWF Conference 2024 trade fair grounds, so everyone can get an idea of reforestation directly on site at the trade fair, 2.5 years after the start of the project. The project is being carried out by Pfanzelt and other partners, such as the KWF and the federal forests.

Project area

The area is approx. 1.5 hectares. Most of the area’s forest stock fell victim to a storm and bark beetle. The old stock, of which very little remains, and small areas with natural regeneration are preserved. The material still lying on the surface (tops, branches) and sticks are also not processed if possible. So that reforestation can take place near-naturally and adapted to the terrain, a combination of planting and sowing strips and 8 x 8 m planting squares is established. The focus is on ensuring that maintenance can be carried out mechanically as much as possible in the coming years.

In order to be able to document all tasks related to Moritz, the machines have been equipped with exatrek.de data loggers that record not only the working time and the diesel consumption, but also the area performance etc. for the project.

2. Fence construction

In December 2021, a 500m long and 2m wide fence was routed around the area. The fence was then completed in February. The Moritz remote-controlled implement carrier was the ideal helper here.

3. Seeding and planting

"Our new container planter is partly automated, with the operator taking over the driving and positioning of the Moritz. The planting process itself is completely automatic," explains Voderholzer. Container plants were planted with the new Plantomat planter. For an optimal comparison, some of the planting squares were also planted by hand. Both container and bare-root plants are used. In this way, we can compare the different results on KWF theme days. The planter planted approx. 2,300 trees: 70% oak and 30% Douglas fir.

Pelleted Douglas Fir seeds were applied to around 600m² with the sowing strip mulcher.

4. Care and maintenance

To facilitate machine maintenance, the planting and sowing strips were laid out at a distance of two metres. The MAX forestry mulcher with its working width of 1.2 metres can therefore easily remove unwanted growth between rows. Removal of the individual plants in the row is not necessary for this method.