Planting time data based on automated data collection

In this dataset, the planting time information is based on data collected by the Risutec Asta documentation system. The data consisted of nine planting sites in western Finland (the coordinates of the study area are 60°41'52"N–61°59'38"N and 21°36'24"E–23°48'49"E). Mechanized planting was carried out by one machine entrepreneur using a crawler excavator fitted with a Risutec PM-160 planting device during the planting seasons of 2019 and 2020. A total of 72,711 seedlings were planted at the study sites (40.6 ha). 

The collected Asta data were used to define the time consumption and productivity of the excavator-based planting machine, considering the production time consumed at the planting worksites (hours), the loading time of the seedling cassette (minutes), the planting time per seedling (seconds), and the operating hour productivity (seedlings G15-hour–1, including short [<15 min] delays). The timestamps of each mechanically planted seedlings were presented in chronological order, including the start and end times of planting work.

The calculated planting time per seedling (s seedling–1) is presented for each planting observation (seedling). The planting time per seedling was calculated by subtracting the timestamp of the previously planted seedling from the timestamp of the planted seedling. In practice, all productivity and time consumption calculations in the study are based on the calculated planting times per seedling. Further details regarding the calculations and employed methodologies can be found in the article (Kemppainen et al. 2024).

Description of all variables in the dataset:

Site = Number of study site (1–9) 

Seedling = Order number of planted seedling

Date = Date of planting observation (format: DD.MM.YYYY)

Timestamp = Time of planting observation (format: HH.MM.SS)

Planting time (s) = Calculated planting time per seedling (seconds)

Note: In the study by Kemppainen et al. (2024), all planting times of less than 4 s were excluded from the final dataset. Following the correction of the data, a total of 71 903 seedlings included in the final dataset. In addition, the planting time of the first seedling planted at the worksite was defined as 9 s because there was no previous timestamp for the first seedling to allow an exact calculation of the planting time.

References

Kemppainen K., Kärhä K., Laitila J., Sairanen A., Kankaanhuhta V., Viiri H., Peltola H. (2024). Evaluation of the productivity and costs of excavator-based mechanized tree planting in Finland based on automated data collection. Silva Fennica vol. 58 no. 5 article id 24047. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.24047