Silviculture at scale in Brazil

Dr Alex Freitas and Bruno Reis of Brazil’s largest eucalyptus forestry company, Suzano, presented an overview of forestry in the country. Brazil’s resources and investment in silviculture technologies are mind-blowing compared to South Africa. 

Because of the scale of their activities, Brazil’s forest owners increasingly rely on automated nurseries and mechanised planting. For them, nursery production automation is not a matter of whether it can be applied but rather when it will be used. 

Suzano has four experimental nurseries geographically positioned in its main plantation areas. Suzano’s Towards 2030 high-tech nurseries strategy is focused on automating each step of the clonal development and production processes. 

The company was the first adopter of Ellepot propagation systems and paper pots outside Scandinavia. It combines the Ellepot paper pot and staking system with robotic materials handling, RFID tagging, humidity sensors and electroconductivity within the germinating and hardening-off tunnels. 

Freitas says they are now researching the optimal height of the seedlings and seedling trays for mechanised planting systems. They found that the survival rate of seedlings larger than 36cm used in mechanised planting was sub-optimal. 

The company uses ArcGIS Survey 123 to evaluate seedling quality over time and provide traceability data for each seedling. Seedlings between 15cm and 25cm have a survival rate of 28 days regardless of the seedling tray (plastic or paper pots). 

Brazil’s numbers

Suzano’s Investment in RD&I projects is R$122 million (R380 million)

Suzano’s nurseries in numbers

One of the largest consumers of eucalyptus seedlings in the world. 

The supply chain of 500 million seedlings per year is from:

Suzano uses pXRF proximal sensing, which NASA uses to characterise the soils. The analysis lasts only 60 seconds, generates no chemical residues and avoids a cost of about R$ 1 million/year for the company. It is expected to internalise 100% of the soil and plant analyses.

(Exchange rate: B$1 = R3,15 on 13 Nov 2024)

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