UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2017-ENG

Mikael Smolander, Tuija Räsänen and Jutaphak Jarotram are hand packing spruce seedlings.

Eija Hynninen and Jari-Pekka Koskinen monitor the seedlings’ growth conditions using a computer at the control room.

Living plants and automation Nursery manager Anne Immonen gently stirs her hand through a bowl filled with pine seeds – her stress relief method of choice. Immonen explains that this 1.5-kilogram batch of seeds would be enough to yield 150,000 seedlings and a pinewood forest roughly five hectares in size. What a waste to just keep them in a bowl! But not to worry – these seeds can no longer germinate, unlike the batches waiting in plastic canisters in the seed depot, all sourced exclusively from Finnish seed farmers and forests. UPM never purchases foreign seeds in order to prevent the spread of plant diseases – added to which it is always anybody’s guess if a foreign seed and the resulting

tree can survive Finland’s harsh, snowy conditions. Immonen knows the origin of every seed batch. This means that every outgoing batch of seeds from Joroinen is also labelled for origin. The nursery staff are also very careful in picking out the seedlings and their destinations. Their genotype decides. Seedlings from northern seeds are sent north, southern- born seedlings head south. At harvest time, Immonen can tell a seedling’s place of origin by its colour. The seedlings fromKainuu in the north have a deep green shade, as they begin preparing for winter earlier than their southern counterparts. Immonen explains the “‘colour code”’ as we crouch to inspect a year-old lot of spruce seedlings.

“See, those reddish seedlings are already showing winter colours,” she points out. True enough, the different tones are easy to tell apart when you look closely enough. At first the nursery looks like a rather monotone sea of young trees, but soon one’s eye starts picking up variety. An untrained eye is no match for the growers, of course – they have cared for the seedlings since germination and are well aware of what robust seedlings should look like at each stage of their growth. “We only use the best seeds, as they are the foundation of a healthy forest. As with wines, every year is different, and we know each vintage,” Immonen says. A double graduate with degrees

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