Life Elia

For the LIFE Elia-RTE team, spring always sounds like the awakening of nature but also as the end of plantation species for edges and orchards. The first plant of this tumultuous season was planted November 17th 2014 in Mellier (Léglise) and the last on April 16th 2015 near Aywaille, in Belgium. Between the two, they are no less than 65,000 other plants that were planted...

Feedbacks on this hectic work campaign.

Objectives reached

Working with plants requires taking a thousand precautions. Regarding plantations bare root young plants, it starts with a good estimation of the quantities of plants. It is really important for the nursery to plan uprooting and needs to find other suppliers if the stocks are not large enough. In total, we ordered and planted over 65,000 young plants that we grouped into 10 successive commands from 4,000 to 12,000 pieces. This represents 32 ha of planted edges on 14 different sites (see map). The work was achieved by 6 planting teams (Damien Barbette, La pépinière Gailly-Jourdan, Arnaud Adam, Arbo'plant, Le trusquin et Bois-Vert). We warmly thank them for their professionalism.

Planning, delays, setbacks and adaptation.

Beyond the geographical distribution sites to plant that are scattered enough, the great difficulty of plantations is to orchestrate the work within a tight schedule (November to March, slaloming between days of hunt, periods of snow and frost) and especially taking into account the deadlines set for the prior operations of extending forest corridors for safety reasons. Indeed, on 8 of the 14 sites this year, power lines still need to be safe before we could implement restoration actions of our LIFE Elia-RTE project. The team is working closely with the team of CARAH designated by Elia for the contacting phase and drafting of specifications for logging resulting from the extension.

The deadlines for the logging and disposal of wood are also short enough to take advantage of the clean soil to plant immediately after clear cut and usually after leftovers rotary milling. Out of the 8 sites, four forestry companies were charged to work before mid-March in order to replant immediately after.

Unfortunately the winter was long and moderately cold. The soils have long remained wet or covered with snow and there was never really a frozen soil. Therefore, some clear cuts have been delayed and plantations could not begin until early March.

Despite all the precautions and the good will of some contractors, the initial goal of planting everything before March 31^st was therefore compromised. Moreover, at the last minute, the contractor responsible for a construction site clearing on 6 ha announced a probable delay ... 1 months more needed (end of April) which makes impossible the planting of nearly 12,000 plants. However, orders for plants could not be cancelled. The all timing of planting was disrupted. The owners have agreed, planting teams were ready, the plants were ready to be delivered and now this major site goes out the track and can be planted only in the fall 2015.

To avoid throwing the plants, the team had to adapt and plan all the program. All solutions were considered :

* Planting team are ready, they must be given the job. So we found other sites, they will have to travel 100 km more

*Two plants commands have been reversed

* A plant delivery was put in cold storage (1 °C) to slow bud's development. This plant lethargy was maintained thanks to the participation of forest service Nassogne (Wallonia Public Service) which helped us very kindly by making available a cold room

* New sites are found partly thanks to the contractor Philippe Mignon who kindly reprogrammed these projects to progress at the pace originally planned

* Elia took over the site of 6 ha and contracted another operator to make available much of the ground and make it suitable for planting.

* Planters are recruited at the last minute to help us in this last rush

The LIFE team members also put their hands to the dough in plants transportation and in the planting itself along with plantation teams.

March, April, stress of plantations

More than half of the plants (35,000) to be planted in a 45 days !

Backs are suffering, plant buds are flowering... we have to go fast, we need to complete the mission. On some sites, planting teams were right on rotary milling machines heels.

But the more stressful is for the plants. One of the lessons of past planting season was the need to focus the autumn planting (November-December) compared to spring plantations (February-March). Indeed, often very dry conditions in April and May are not easy conditions for the young plants. The stress of transplantation combined with a lack of rainfall and the dry northeast wind can cause drying of the aerial part of the plants and compromise their regrowth. Fortunately, the robust character of these species (Hazel, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Elder...) the plants end up recreate new stems.

Difficult to predict the future of latest plantings of early April. The whole team of the LIFE project gathers every evening for the rain dance for the last week of April... We hope that the regrowth will be a success !