Important facts about SRC Willow

Short Rotation Coppice Willow is a unique crop both as an energy and as an environmental crop.

Energy crop:

• SRC Willow is easy and relatively inexpensive to plant using cuttings.
• SRC Willow grows extremely rapidly already during the second year after planting.
• SRC Willow can be harvested using efficient machinery. The same machines also do the chipping. We are able to chip also three times faster per hour than a chipper in the forest.
• SRC Willow chips is a good product on the fuel market and is combusted in the same way as other wood fuels.

Environmental crop:

• SRC Willow requires large amounts of water to grow well. Consequently, we can use the SRC Willow plantation as a biofilter. The plantations are supplied with wastewater from sewage treatment or leachate from landfills. The plants can make use of both the nutrients and the heavy metals present in the water.
• Several Swedish municipalities have therefore established an irrigated SRC Willow plantation as part of their sewage treatment installations. This is an inexpensive and effective solution.
• Another unique property is that some varieties of SRC Willow are capable of taking up cadmium. The cadmium concentration in arable land is sometimes high. By planting certain varieties of SRC Willow it is possible to remove the cadmium from the soil and thus reduce the risk of increased cadmium concentrations in foodstuffs.