The forests in the Netherlands are doing badly. Extreme drought, sometimes too much precipitation, fungi and beetles. Not to mention the shortage of nutrients in the soil. That is why many trees nowadays die early. To respond to climate change, there are so -called future -proof forests under construction in three places in the Netherlands, including in Boschoord near the Frisian border. There, a unique experiment is started where a forest is sown again on location.
“Sowing trees has not been done this way for eighty years,” says Jacob Kruijer. Just like his father, Kruijer is the manager at the society of beneficency. From childhood he walks around in the forests of the area.
Lars Visser from Bosgroep Noord-Oost Nederland is also aware of the unique. “I even think it might be the first time in the Netherlands that it will be done this way.”
The Society of Benevolence has 1300 hectares of land, a lot of forest, mainly for wood production. Kruijer thinks that the project is pre -eminently in the former beneficiary. After all, the area has a rich past with pioneering.
In order to find out the best strategy for a climate -proof forest, a lot must be considered. “We now think that in twenty years we will have the climate of France here. But it can also go the other way, that it is getting cooler here,” says Kruijer.
Yet there are also a number of certainties. Especially in the field of what you should not do. For example, a monoculture, in which there is only one tree species in a forest, is disastrous for the forest and the soil. Certainly on the food -poor sandy soils in Drenthe.
“If you don’t have a mix of tree species, you don’t have a good litter digestion,” explains Kruijer. “That is leaf on the ground that is digested and ensures enough minerals in the soil. This makes the tree grow and it is better for changes in the climate. Now that is not happening well.”
It plays a role that trees are often purchased during planting. By falling back on old knowledge and trees again at the location where they grow up, fishing and Kruijer hope that the trees are stronger. “If we get a plant from the nursery, it has grown there in a nice bed and then it comes here in a dry sandy soil,” says Visser. “The tree has difficulty with that and it is more likely that it will fall out.”
This week a seed test was therefore started with seeds of different tree species on approximately 2 hectares. In addition, critically looked at which tree species are sown where. Everything is carefully kept and measured. Visser therefore runs for miles with his mobile phone through the forest. “What kind is going faster than the other species? In what circumstances does it grow up? We want to be able to monitor everything so that we know in the future what we can continue to work with.”
According to Visser, the sowing technique is copied from Germany. According to him, they walk for forest management. “If you look at forest management there, is what we do in the Netherlands ‘gardening’.” It is not without reason that the suitable seed machine is not in the Netherlands, but can be found in Germany.
Many seeds are planted in the test forest, including a kilo of Thujazad, which is about the same as 70,000 seeds and two hundred kilos of acorns per hectare. Visser assumes that at least 50 percent of them will not stand up. The greatest danger is the animals in the forest such as the mice and the deer. They like to pick a seed or eat the young trees. The piece of forest is therefore largely trimmed with fencing.
Now the wait is what it will deliver. Kruijer: “If you really want to see the result, it will take ten to fifteen years.”