MetINFO - Daily growth of trees

Up-to-date information from forest to internet

Photo: Tapio Huttunen

Each sample tree has a girth band of the type D6 Permanent Tree Girth Band /UMS GmpH. When the tree circumference changes, the electric resistance of the sensor changes likewise.

The tree circumference is recorded automatically once every hour. The accuracy of the measurement system is appr. 0.01 mm.

The observations are automatically sent at 10am every morning via mobile phone to a computer at Finnish Forest Research Institute. After basic calculations and graph update, the computer transfers the data to the internet within an hour.

The team:

• Pentti Niemistö, Pekka Nöjd and Harri Mäkinen (Project management, Comments)
• Hannu Aaltio (Programming, Graphs)
• Tapio Huttunen (Maintenance of girth bands, Data transfer)
• Jussi Voipio (WWW-pages)

Photo: Tapio Huttunen