Forest Ecology in Trentino: FEM's Tree Talkers
June 2022

Thanks to the Edmund Mach Foundation, now even trees can talk. They do so through Tree Talkers, innovative devices that, thanks to IoT technology, allow continuous monitoring of plant parameters and the environment in which they vegetate. In Trentino there are currently 170 of them, distributed over about 6 sites in different areas and at different altitudes, so they are representative of the forest diversity of the woodland heritage. The main strengths of this technology: wireless transmission of data in real time and very low costs, both for purchasing the devices and for keeping them in operation.

What Tree Talkers are and how they work

The first Tree Talker prototype was created by the company Nature 4.0, which then engineered and put it on the market. The role of the Forest Ecology Unit of the Edmund Mach Foundation was to test this new technology first in the laboratory, then in the forest. 

Tree talkers were born from the need to have a tool for monitoring trees on a continuous basis and not only on a periodic basis, as is the case in classical measurements in the forest environment. They consist of a central unit, which has a processor and memory card inside it connected to several sensors that measure plant parameters and a number of environmental and microclimatic elements such as temperature and air humidity. 

Watch the interview with Luca Belelli Marchesini, researcher at the Edmund Mach Foundation

(English subtitles available)

Tree Talkers are composed of:

  • Radial trunk growth sensor: measures the distance to the tree bark with an infrared ray. It gives information on stem growth and thus on the formation of woody circles

  • Thermometer probes: two sensors that are used to measure lymph flow and wood humidity

  • 12-band spectrometer: it is sensitive to visible radiation and in the near-infrared region. It measures the quality of light transmitted by the plant foliage and gives information on the phenomenology and health status of the plant. 

  • Thermohydrometer: measures the temperature and relative humidity of the air

  • Accelerometer: measures changes in the position of the trunk, which is subject to oscillations under the action of the wind

All data acquired by the various sensors are transmitted by radio on an hourly basis and converge to a data concentrator-transmitter, which in turn transmits them by gsm signal to a web server, from which they are available in real time for analysis. The device's power supply is hybrid (battery + photovoltaic panel) and provides a forest runtime of 4 months. 

Tree Talker: strengths compared to traditional techniques

  • Monitoring on a continuous basis: instead, measurements in the forest environment are generally carried out on a periodic basis

  • Compact and versatile solution from a technological point of view: when instrumental techniques that allow continuous data acquisition are used, they usually have much more complex instrumental setup needs

  • Single tree scale monitoring: many methodologies used in forest ecology give data that relate to a specific area (remote sensing or micrometric techniques). With Tree Talkers you go down to the level of a single individual in the analysis of a forest stand and its functional and ecological characteristics.

  • Very low costs

FEM and innovation

The Edmund Mach Foundation's Research and Innovation Center has been experimenting in recent years with various cutting-edge technologies (sensors, survey towers and satellites) that are part of an Italian monitoring network that has 25 sites across the country. The research activity related to "talking trees" is taken care of by the Forest Ecology Unit and is part of the Italian Tree Talker Network, a project created under the PRIN (Research Projects of National Interest) call and funded by MIUR. 

Learn about another innovative project of the Edmund Mach Foundation told by Invest in Trentino: TRENTINO FORESTS ARE BEING MONITORED FROM SPACE.