"Mechanical uprooting means removing coppice with the roots. It will reduce the number of new shoots, meaning that it often will no longer be necessary to make any pre-commercial thinning. At many sites, you may get straight from uprooting to first commercial thinning," explains Jyri Schildt, Chief of Forest Management at UPM Forest.

We can carry out mechanical uprooting when the ground is not frozen. The working period from May to October is longer than the manual cleaning period between Midsummer and late August. As such, the uprooter lightens the workload during the busy Midsummer forestry season.

"UPM has developed this method for a long time, along with other active parties. We have carried out mechanical uprooting in company forests for almost a decade now. We have generated excellent results using this form of uprooting. As a result of this development, we are now able to offer this modern and cost-efficient method to private forest owners," says Jari Engström, Sales Manager at UPM Forest.

Mechanical uprooting has been developed and tested in North Karelia, the home of Pentin Paja, the company that manufactures the uprooters. Next summer, UPM will use three machines equipped with an uprooter in North Savonia, as well as around a dozen machines across the whole of Finland. The number of uprooters is expected to rapidly increase over the next few years.