Background and Objective

For short rotation plantations as renewable resources, especially on dry and poor soil, aspen are more suitable than other poplars or willows. In contrast to the easy-to-root poplar species, vegetative propagation of aspen is not possible in a cost-effective way. In a natural environment, seeds stay alive only for a few weeks. Growing plantlets from aspen seeds in the greenhouse or in the field is labour-consuming because of the small seed size and weight. If sowing technology and suitability for storage could be improved, the use of seeds could be an alternative.

Approach

Large seed amounts of aspen and other poplar species were harvested and cleaned for subsequent investigations in pelleting experiments, storage trials and sowing tests.