ROSEWOOD4.0 Study Visits during the Poplar Week (Spain)

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The Poplar Week, organised by our consortium partner in South-West Europe, CESEFOR Foundation, was held in León, Spain, on the 15th and 16th of June. During these days, the ROSEWOOD4.0 study visits were organised, focused on the digitalisation of the poplar sector, to promote entrepreneurship and new business models around poplar, aimed at public and private forest owners, as well as companies in the timber sector, forestry and environmental consultancy professionals, and even universities and research centres.

One of the main objectives of the Study Visit in Spain was to demonstrate poplar cultivation and management techniques and to present the opportunities it offers. The objectives of the study visit can be summarised in the following three areas:

  • Give visibility and share the best practices and innovations identified in Spain (related to the poplar sector) to a wide audience in the forestry sector.
  • Present best practices and innovations detected by other ROSEWOOD4.0 consortium hubs.
  • Stimulate future cooperation and business opportunities for the SMEs involved: explore new partnerships between project partners and stakeholders.

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Some of the best practices and solutions presented during the organised Spanish Study Visits include SOMACYL, FACYLE and the digital tool ChopperApp.

The participation of the best practice SOMACYL was very important as it is the public infrastructure company of the region, and the knowledge of its specialists, experts and those responsible for poplar plantations in Castilla y León. SOMACYL presented the management of land for poplar wood production in the region, explaining the digital management of poplar plantations.

In the case of FACYLE, the non-profit organisation representing forest owners in Castilla y León (Spain), the attendees learned in more detail about the mobilisation of the private forest market, such as the collective auctions of owners through forestry associations with FAFCYLE. All attendees visited poplar plantations, forest harvesting and local sawmills as part of the study visit.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the participation of the expert David García (Agresta) who explained the interest and use of ChoperApp, a digital tool that estimates the volume of poplar forests with LiDAR. The main result is a detailed tree-by-tree analysis of a poplar plantation from raw LiDAR data and a simple application to delimit a perimeter on which to evaluate and extract this information.

This was very interesting and the discussion after the study visit was very participative as there is a growing interest in mobile applications that facilitate forest management and the knowledge of forest owners. However, new technologies are difficult to use for older forest owners, who are the majority in the region, but they showed and appreciated user-friendly tools such as ChoperApp.

Download Study Visits presentations