Project

The forest sector is a driving force behind economic development of Latvia. Forests cover around 3.435 million ha or 53% of the country's territory, and the forest area continues to expand. Forest expansion occurs both naturally and artificially through planting or sowing. The accumulated stock of wood in forests is growing three times faster each year than the forest area itself, which is a tangible proof of country being engaged in targeted forestry. On average, forests in Latvia produce around 11 million m³ of wood, which is less than the natural growth rate, therefore, forestry can be described as sustainable.
One of the strategic objectives of the Latvian forest sector is to achieve the growth of the wood product of at least 12 times when reaching a buyer outside the industry by 2030. One of the key prerequisites for achieving this goal is to ensure the production of quality planting material. The average seedling production time is between 1.5 and 2 years, which is influenced not only by the volume of seedlings produced, but also by their species and regional origin. The production of planting material is carried out in a greenhouse using seeds from different tree species (birch, pine, spruce, alder, etc.). If each tree seedling was stronger and healthier, new forestry plantations (planted or sown) would generally have a better chance of resisting the negative effects of the climate. Planned reforestation with new quality planting is a sustainable management of renewable natural resources.
Currently, in tree nurseries (with an average area of ~1000 m2), records of weeding, feeding with nutrients, watering and pesticide treatments are kept manually, consuming a large amount of human resources. At the time of project application submission, there is no information system available to provide spatial reference to the seedlings. Meantime, a large amount of time is spent on collecting and analysing relevant data on the growth of seedlings.
The project will develop a new technology for the global market, which includes the design and development of hardware and software for sensor data processing and analysis. The innovation will enable tree nurseries to obtain data timely (through monitoring) on the health status of seedlings, the presence of weeds and relative soil moisture levels. The results of the analysis will be transferred into the GIS system for spatial representation and for planning of future greenhouse work. The newly developed technology will not only increase the quality of the nurseries and planting material, but will also increase the productivity of human resources, which directly corresponds with the strategic objective of the Latvian forest sector to double the value added per job by 2030.

The project activities will be divided into 4 phases involving all partners:
P1 – Project launch: synchronisation of partners' work, organisation of procurement of hardware and services required for the project;
P2 - Design and development of hardware. P2: design and development of the visual sensor positioning hardware;
P3 - Development of sensor data processing and analysis software;
P4 - Integration between solution components. Integration of new hardware, greenhouse irrigation equipment, sensor hardware and data processing and analysis software, including with the GIS system and testing.
Quantitative indicators of the project: sensor data processing and analysis software-1; greenhouse seedling graphical information dataset-1; sensor hardware package with air rails-1; reports on project progress and results-at least-2; evaluation of the efficiency and accuracy of the new technology-1.
Quality indicators of the project: automation and digitalization of greenhouse tree seedling growth process monitoring – a process that is demanding for human resources in forestry. Enabling intelligent, timely and optimal greenhouse nursery processes using the latest IT, AI and parallel computing technologies.

• Rīgas meži, SIA
• Latvijas Biozinātņu un tehnoloģiju universitāte
• Konstantinovas pagasta zemnieku saimniecība "Pasakas", Zemnieku saimniecība
• Energouzraugs, SIA
• Mežvidu lauksaimniecības un tehnoloģiju parks, Biedrība