Planter’s guide - a joint decision support tool for Scots pine plant material in Sweden and Finland

In the spring of 2019, joint Swedish-Finnish deployment recommendations for Scots pine were developed and presented. The new model framework allows Swedish and Finnish seed orchard crops to be ranked and compared on the same scale in either of the countries. This has now been implemented in a freely available web-based decision support tool (Planter’s Guide) which covers both countries in each language, and also as an English version.

The Planter’s Guide allows the user to select an arbitrary planting site, either by clicking on a map or by providing the coordinates of the site. The tool then produces a list of seed orchards ranked according to a performance index which is an estimate of volume production per hectare over a rotation. The user can also decide to sort and rank the seed orchards by growth or survival instead.

The deployment recommendations are climate adapted: the performance index is based on survival ability in the current climate, but simultaneously taking advantage of the improved growth conditions in the future climate. This is achieved by using state-of-the-art climate reference data in the model framework and adding climate change effects by using scenario data. Currently only one scenario is available, but new scenarios will be added further ahead.

Additional information about each seed orchard (e.g. ownership, clonal origin, establishment year, size) is available by selecting and clicking on it in the list. A map of the suitable deployment area for each seed orchard is shown, and the deployment maps for different seed orchards can be compared.