Steady supply of trees to combat climate change effects
A new £4 million miniplug production plant to meet the demand for high-quality UK-grown trees has been unveiled by Maelor Forest Nurseries. Building work near Wrexham started last summer. It’s hoped the plant will be finished this spring. The first crops are expected to be ready in winter 2023/24. This follows the opening of a state-of-the-art research laboratory in 2020.
The facility will secure a continuous, steady supply of tree stocks while improving quality and resilience to climate change effects. Traditional commercial methods of growing saplings run the risk of disruption by droughts, frosts, heatwaves and flooding. The availability of a suitably trained workforce is also key to the success of crop establishment in the field.
Ben Goh, Maelor Forest Nurseries’ commercial manager, said: “The above factors combine to make outdoor seed sowing and establishment one of the highest risk steps in the production of trees on the nursery and the hardest to commercially plan.
‘Minimising risks’ – Maelor Forest Nurseries
“We have taken the step to invest £4 million in a miniplug production facility to minimise these risks whilst improving quality and increasing production capacity.”
The facility has three elements: a seed sowing line, a covered growing area and outdoor hardening off space, connected by a roller bench system, reducing manual handling of trays.
The company sows seeds directly into trays with germination taking place in a controlled environment. This improves the consistency, yield, and security of the tree supply. Modularised seedling production enables automated transplanting, in the field or into larger cells. Field trials included auto-planting more than five million miniplugs between October 2020 and April 2021 with excellent yield and consistency.
Maelor Forest Nurseries Ltd is part of the BSW Timber Ltd Group, based in Wales and Scotland. It sells more than 28 million UK-grown trees a year in the UK and Europe. For more information, visit maelor.co.uk.
