The Sverdlovsk region lost more than 325 thousand hectares of forest in the dry summer fires. Coniferous seedlings are planted here. More than 24 million of them were harvested to restore 30 thousand hectares. “To sow one hectare you need 80 kg of Siberian fir seeds,” explained the acting director. Berezovsky forestry director Mikhail Kalgin. Four-year-old fir trees are considered ready for planting. They are sorted and sent to the refrigerator before planting.
But in the Kalina-Park nursery the technology is different. This year, 1.2 million pine seedlings and 600,000 small Christmas trees were grown there in three-hundred-meter greenhouses. Greenhouse conditions help accelerate the growth process: in two years the trees reach the same size as in four years in the open field. And so that the transfer “to nature” does not become a shock, the seedlings are acclimatized to the open air. “The nursery has a large surface area for hardening the seedlings, which takes six weeks,” explained the nursery director, Maria Korosteleva.
The Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the region, Denis Mamontov, noted that thanks to artificial plantations, forest restoration can be accelerated by 5-7 times. This takes 10 years instead of 70, as would have been natural.
On September 16, the Tyumen region will pick up the forest baton. Volunteers and local residents will plant 105,600 spruce and pine trees. The “Save the Forest” campaign will last two months throughout the country, from Murmansk to the village of Sobolevo in Kamchatka.
It is carried out within the framework of the national project “Ecology”. One of its goals is to achieve parity in reforestation and afforestation with the area of felled and dead forests by 2024. Thanks to the national project, forest nurseries are being developed, the amount of cultivated planting material is increasing, and volunteers are participating in the work of recovery of the forest fund. And the objective has not only been achieved. For two years now, the area of planted forest has exceeded the area lost by fires.
Take notes
Do you want to get in on the action? Visit the website preserveimles.rf. On the map, find your region and the address closest to you. This way you will know the time and place to plant trees. You will receive the inventory on site.
