We did not reach such significant volumes immediately. Initially, when creating the company, it was decided to introduce the crop throughout the year in nurseries. The Vanino Forestry Center began its activities in the fall of 2019 with the construction of an experimental greenhouse. Its surface was 560 square meters. A six-story cultivation system appeared there: up to 700,000 seedlings were grown here at the same time. The technology is interesting, especially at the beginning of the development of the nursery, when it is necessary to build and receive finished products in maximum volumes.
The laying of the foundations began in September and in winter they assembled the greenhouse. Released in stages. At the same time, we began to gain experience in planting seedlings in the forest. At first, someone else’s planting material was used. The work was carried out on 48 hectares in the Soviet forestry. The plantings have taken root, now the larches have reached a height of one and a half meters. In 2026, the area on which forest plantations are located will pass into the category of land covered with forest vegetation.
By 2020, two greenhouses have already been built. One is large, fully functional, constantly modernized. Nearby they built a small, double-circuit movie, with an area of about 350 square meters. Now that the decision to decommission has been made, the company will switch to a common standard, but at the time, in terms of price and speed of construction, this was the best option. The greenhouse made it possible to increase the volume of planting material by 200,000 seedlings in one iteration. Collecting three crops a year, we additionally receive close to 600,000 units of planting material.
In the second year of the company’s existence, the staff already numbered ten people. Basically these were greenhouses, they did a lot of manual labor (planting, harvesting, cassette handling).
Additional volumes of own seedlings made it possible to increase the volume of pine and larch plantations. In the Koppinsky district forestry, 130 hectares were filled with forest crops, in Verkhne-Anyuisky – 200.
Since August 2020, VCL LLC received the status of a resident of the Vladivostok free port, which allowed money saved through preferences and tax benefits to be reinvested in production. At that time, our clients “matured” to the provision of compensatory reforestation services (obligation of users to restore the forest, disturbed in the course of productive activities).
VCL grows seedlings year-round, while other companies can only operate seasonally
Since the fall of 2020, our company has begun to provide a full range of services, from the development of a reforestation project and the cultivation of seedlings from the corresponding forest seed region to the planting of forest crops with integrated agricultural care. The practices of the modern world applied allowed to increase the volume of production. In the same 2020, the total number of cultivated seedlings exceeded 1.5 million.
In 2021, we began to build an administrative building and supplemented the complex with a greenhouse – a special type of greenhouse, in which a thermal regime is formed with the preservation of solar energy. All the greenhouses were linked by galleries. The total area has grown by another 500 squares. The competent team of employees formed began to apply various solutions that increased the efficiency of work and the quality of the material.
The geography of clients has expanded: our center began to operate in Kolyma and Primorye, continued to work in the Khabarovsk Territory. The company planted Siberian larch on 232 hectares in the Magadan region, Dahurian larch in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories on 40 and 50 hectares, respectively. Taking into account the climatic features of the region, in order to work in the tundra forest zone of the Magadan region, they created their own technology for gentle soil preparation using a mulcher. It has proven to be positive, and now we are using this method in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territories and in the Sakhalin region.
Today we cooperate with large logging, mining, transport, and railway companies. In the fall of 2021, VCL began to build additional greenhouses with a total area of 2,000 hectares. In winter, some of them were put into operation temporarily.
We start the 2022 field season with the planting of forest crops on 150 hectares in Primorsky Krai. In the new greenhouses, the installation of ground heat accumulators and complementary lighting systems was completed. Then, by order of the users of the Magadan subsoil, seedlings were planted in an area of more than 200 hectares. And they finished the season, having mastered the first areas (about 60 hectares) on the territory of the Sakhalin region. At the same time, the greenhouse complex reached a volume of more than five million seedlings per year.
In 2023, we plan to build two new vaulted greenhouses for seedlings of coniferous species. At this point, the construction of a single complex will be completed and the center will reach a capacity of ten million seedlings per year with a four iteration cultivation scheme. Today in the Far East there are quite large complexes, comparable in terms of production with the “Vanino Forest Center”. However, VCL technologies make it possible to grow seedlings year-round, while other companies may only operate seasonally. Our company’s foresters use automated irrigation and planting systems, which has a positive effect on the quality of seedlings and their survival rate. Taking into account the received equipment for automation, already from 2023 the Vanino Forestry Center will become the market leader and will become the largest complex in the Far East.
