Blenheim Estate and British climate tech firm A Healthier Earth has launched ForestFactory, an innovative project designed to increase the effectiveness, survival and speed of reforestation projects.

Using innovative farming methods including micro-propagation, vertical farms and biochar the partnership brings together climate and AgTech innovation, forestry and estate management to tackle climate change-related land and forestry challenges.

Factors including a European shortage of available seeds and tree-stock, changing climate, changing soil conditions and low seedling survival rates are negatively impacting reforestation efforts at historical estates like Blenheim. A Healthier Earth’s ForestFactory concept tackles these issues, using synthetic biology to deploy geo-specific and genetically diverse forests that sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Included in the innovations is the use of Autonomous Vertical Farming Systems (AVFS) growing local seedlings and saplings in vertically-stacked layers in a controlled, autonomous environment, monitored and operated by software, to create beneficial characteristics which aid survivability and health.

The partnership aims to plant 600,000 trees over the next three years across Blenheim Estate, and A Healthier Earth is working with vertical farming technology, data, and manufacturing specialists Vertical Future grow a target of 50,400 saplings in a trial phase, with a view to jointly developing a large-scale facility, capable of producing a minimum of one million saplings per year at full-scale.

(Picture credit Pete Seaward.)

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