Discover the characteristics of Nordic conifer.
Do you know Nordic pine?
Nordic pine is adapted to harsh conditions. Sustainable and responsibly produced pine sawn timber is suitable for various end-uses, which is why further processors around the world appreciate it.
Text: Maria Latokartano Photos: Metsä Fibre
After a long winter, spring has arrived in the Nordic forest. The snow is turning into streams, while the first migratory birds are getting ready to nest. Ants, woken up by the spring, gather together to warm up on the sunny side of the anthill. Even the trees are waking up. In April, you can hear snapping in the tree crowns as pinecones open and shed their seeds for the wind to spread. Each seed has a flight wing of about one centimetre. It helps the seed move dozens, even hundreds, of metres away from the parent tree. Once the seed is on the ground, it will germinate in a few weeks. First it grows a root, followed by a seedling. The Nordic summer is short, which is why trees need to take full advantage of the warm, bright days. In early summer, a sapling can grow up to 2–3 centimetres in height every day. The diameter increases most quickly at the end of summer. First, a light ring indicating early summer growth grows on the outer edge of the sapling, which will turn into a dark ring indicating late summer growth.
In five years, the pines have grown to a height of one metre. Among them grow deciduous trees, such as birches, rowans and aspens. After an early clearing, at approximately 15 years, the sapling stand will be thinned out to the correct growth density. Ten years later, it will be time for the first thinning, during which the highest quality trees are left to grow. After this, the forest will be thinned out once or twice more and potentially fertilised before a regeneration felling.
Breeding leads to more growth and higher quality
In Finland, the desire to preserve and develop the genetic makeup of the highest quality trees started in the 1940s. In the decades that followed, the pioneers of forest breeding selected more than 7,000 healthy, high-quality pines with excellent growth properties from around the country. These so-called plus pines formed the foundation of Finnish pine breeding. Their genetic makeup was propagated to seed plantations through grafting, and the resulting seed was used for forest cultivation. Later, the plus trees with the best offspring were crossbred to transfer their beneficial genetic material to their offspring. Through determined breeding work, forest researchers have been able to significantly improve the quality of pine trunks, and optimise the branch diameter, angle habits and growth. The branches of the improved pines are thinner and easy to prune. This increases the proportion of the trunk’s most valuable part, the branchless butt log, and therefore
Quality pines are maintained throughout the rotation period
A sharp pull on the starter rope gets the clearing saw going. A forest worker, dressed in protective shoes and trousers, puts on hearing protectors and lowers their helmet visor before attaching the saw to a harness hook. It takes a human lifetime for a Nordic pine to mature into a log. To grow a quality log the forest must be maintained throughout its rotation period.
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