State enterprise Forests of Ukraine has launched Ukraine’s largest seed center in Chernihiv region, with a design capacity of up to 10 million container-grown seedlings per year. The new center is intended to provide high-quality planting material for forests in northern and southern Ukraine and forms part of the systemic modernization of the forestry sector. The project was announced by the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture.
The seed center was built using modern technologies and is equipped with automated lines, greenhouses, growing fields, and cold storage facilities. Ukraine currently has nine such centers, and, according to Minister Oleksii Sobolev, expanding this network will support forest restoration, including in de-occupied and war-affected territories.
The Ministry stressed that the project was implemented as part of the sector’s transition to modern approaches to forest restoration. The technology of growing containerized seedlings makes it possible to plant regardless of season and ensures a survival rate of more than 90%. This accelerates the growth of forest plantations and reduces the amount of planting material required to restore one hectare of forest.
A seed bank has also been created at the center, with reserves sufficient to grow more than 100 million seedlings, allowing the operation to remain independent of seed yield in any particular year and to plan forest restoration work over the long term.
Minister Oleksii Sobolev emphasized that forests are a strategic, renewable resource that should contribute to the country’s economy. The government is focused on implementing modern technologies in forest restoration, with an emphasis on efficiency, transparency, and the technological advancement of the sector.
The official opening ceremony was attended by Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Taras Vysotskyi, Head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration Viacheslav Chaus, and Head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine Viktor Smal.
