Aiming towards a more sustainable forestry industry with cutting-edge technology
Opticept breaks new ground in cuttings – with OptiBoost for cuttings we can contribute to a more sustainable forest industry
Cuttings provide many advantages for growers. Cuttings can speed up the propagation process as well as the overall production time of annuals and perennials. Rooted cuttings can be stuck into a container, which makes transplanting much faster. That in its turn also lowers labor costs.
Forestry, according to Wikipedia, is “the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits.”
Forestry is important in many aspects, trees provide numerous environmental, social, and economic benefits for people. Forest management however has a substantial impact on our environment and ecosystems. Thankfully, it is a business where much progress is done and more is underway. One of the applications of modern forestry is reforestation, in which trees are planted and tended to in a given area.
It is within this field that OptiBoost technology makes a significant impact, and we will tell you how below.
Reforestation is a way to compensate for the timber used. By restocking and planting new trees, climate change can be reduced, ecosystems rebuilt, and resources used more circularly.
A cutting is taken from a tree, it is placed in a nursery, and will hopefully survive, root, and grow. A biological process that sometimes fails. Some cuttings die instantly, others won’t root and some won’t grow. The loss of cuttings in this process is quite severe, depending on what type of tree and time of the year, the loss can be anywhere between 25-50%.
Improving this process is of course, extremely valuable. Luckily, this is exactly what the OptiBoost for cuttings technology has shown to do.
The OptiBoost technology uses vacuum impregnation (VI) to improve cuttings’ survival rate and rooting. Tests have also been made to prolong the shelf-life of plant cuttings before planting. The vacuum created optimizes for our self-developed nutrient solution to impregnate the cuttings. This nutrient solution is based on the third generation of nanotechnology.
The waste can be minimized since the unsold varieties can be stored and sold with delay when the market demand increases. The optiBoost method also improves the quality of the cuttings.
The general appearance, turgidity, and structure after storage, as well as the development and rooting after planting, are crucially enhanced.
In September 2021, the first OptiBoost for cuttings machine was installed at a customer in South Africa to start trials on Eucalyptus cuttings. The company is a leading global packaging and paper group with a focus on being sustainable by design. They only source wood from either their own sustainably managed forests or purchase it externally from responsible sources.
Based on the trial we can conclude that in Eucalyptus our method will:
Speeding up the rooting process in the first stage in the nursery gives many benefits. In this stage, a heat tunnel is used to maintain humidity, and temperature and to protect the cuttings from disease.
In total,19.992 cuttings were treated over 2 weeks. After 56 days, great results could be confirmed:
The rooting/survival could be improved by 20 – 76 % depending on the variety and recipe. All in all, OptiBoost-treated cuttings showed better rooting for all 3 tested varieties.
With such great results achieved, exciting times lay ahead. OptiBoost technology has been shown to improve the survival and rooting of cuttings. But we believe we can achieve even more by developing our method further. The goal is to develop the technology to:
With such great results achieved, exciting times lay ahead. OptiBoost technology has shown to improve survival and rooting of cuttings. But we believe we can achieve even more by developing our method further
Opticept breaks new ground in cuttings – with OptiBoost for cuttings we can contribute to a more sustainable forest industry
OptiBoost® for cuttings is an advantageous new product and technology for the forest industry, improving the survival rate of unrooted cuttings.
OptiBoost® for cuttings is an advantageous new product and technology for the forest industry, improving the survival rate of unrooted cuttings.
OptiCept invents, designs, and manufactures smart, sustainable technologies to unleash the full potential of organic material.
Ricevi le ultime notizie da OptiCept Technologies direttamente nella tua casella di posta