Page 58 - Book of Abstracts

5 International Scientific Online Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.15414/2021.9788055224015

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FOREST PLANTATIONS AS THE BASIS OF AGROFORESTRY
Igor Grygorev

Arctic State Agrotechnological University, Department of Technology and Equipment of the Forest,
Yakutsk; Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F.
Morozov, Voronezh, Russian Federation; E-mail.: silver73@inbox.ru
In the conditions of negative climate changes, environmental pollution, growing
overpopulation, frequent droughts and crop failures, shortages of food and clean drinking
water, military-political conflicts and climatic anomalies, migration processes gaining
momentum in this regard, the problem of rational and efficient land use are becoming
increasingly urgent.
The Russian Federation, so far, does not face this problem as much as small European or
overpopulated Asian countries. Moreover, the scale of Russia, so far, allows us to treat such
wealth as fertile lands in many ways carelessly. Suffice it to say that in 2021, 60 million hectares
of farmland in Russia are overgrown with forest growth, which is a rather serious problem. This
is due to the fact, that in Russia the Federal Forestry Agency is part of the Ministry of Natural
Resources, and in many foreign countries, similar departments are part of the Ministry of
Agriculture. That is, their forest lands are considered as a kind of agricultural land, allowing
receiving a variety of products, depending on the developing situation.
Without taking into account, for the time being, the global ecological significance of
forests, as well as their social significance, we note that the fundamental difference between
plantations and traditional crops is the duration of crop cultivation, its size, as well as the fact
that a wide range of useful products can be obtained in plantations for logging turnover, the
processes of "production" of which go in parallel and do not interfere with each other. This
property of the forest has been known to mankind for a long time, for example, the spring
collection of tree juices, summer and autumn collection of mushrooms and berries, etc.
The purpose of creating artificial plantations, usually, is the cultivation of monoculture,
for a period determined by the purpose of the final product – wood. Its further direction of use
can be energy, technological chips, lumber, etc.
It should be noted that planting not only woody and shrubby plants can be used for the
production of "green" energy. The optimal choice of rational use of land depends on the specific
natural and industrial situation.
In Russia, in our opinion, energy plantations (plantations) will not be relevant in the
coming years, due to large reserves of hydrocarbons, falling prices for them, the active
development of the country's gasification program, the extinction of villages and small rural
settlements, which is why the demand for wood falls annually. But, in our opinion, balance-
sheet plantations have very good prospects in Russia. This is due to the fact, which ripe
affordable operational forests have been cut down in many regions. There is almost no
construction of forest roads, and the sawmill was destroyed in the last years of the USSR. This
leads to a rapid increase in the shoulder of the export of harvested wood, an increase in its cost,
and, ultimately, an increase in the cost of the final products of wood processing, which means a
decrease in the competitiveness of the domestic forestry complex.
For the cultivation of balance wood, it is not necessary to wait for the age of ripeness to
be reached by the plantation. Moreover, in the initial period, the growth of planting occurs
exponentially, which means that it is possible to significantly reduce the turnover of logging,
increase the efficiency of land use under cuttings that are currently overgrown with blackwood.
Overgrowing of cuttings with weedy tree species is associated with a sharp drop in the volume
of logging, which, in turn, is due to the fact, that the forest user cannot get two turns of logging
during the lease period. And when creating and operating forest plantations, this is quite
possible.

Keywords: agroforestry, forest plantations, bioenergy.

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5 International Scientific Conference Agrobiodiversity for Improving the Nutrition, Health, Quality of Life and |57
Spiritual Human Development
November 3 2021
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