Trees are precious natural resources that sustain life in all forms. They are vital economic, environmental and social assets. They contribute to food supply, capture carbon, reduce noise pollution, prevent flooding and are essential to biodiversity. Trees shape and beautify the landscape, support wildlife, provide timber and support our health and wellbeing.

However, the threat to tree and tree bark health from pests and disease is real and increasing. Globalisation of travel and trade and demands for a greater variety of plant species mean threats are now ever-present as we have access to new sources where different pest and disease threats may occur.

Rules and regulations applied by local governments are becoming increasing tough in order to reduce the risk of importing or exporting pest and disease threats. While the challenges from potential threats like Xylella and Emerald Ash Borer are real, the regulations put in place now and in the future will protect trees and bark products.

It is the responsibility of forestry, landowners, environmental and conservation organisations to put in place the right processes to ensure long term tree and bark health resilience.

Bark is a by-product of the sawmill industry. When suitably treated, ornamental bark mulch can be used for a wide range of professional and domestic landscape applications where a decorative finish is required. Benefits of ornamental bark mulch include;

• Suppression of weed growth, replacing expensive shrub bed hoeing and chemical weed-killing.
• Conservation of soil moisture, minimising drought stress and plant death, eliminating the need for excessive watering.
• Enhancement of the visual appearance of new and existing planted areas.
• Creation of an insulating layer, reducing the effects of ground-freezing and over-heating during extreme weather.
• Improvement of the soil's organic content as the bark decomposes into the soil.
• & much more.

The problem is that bark stripped from trees is likely to contain harmful invasive species which, without a suitable heat treatment process, could be easily spread between sites and across borders. Stronga in-vessel heat treatment solutions provide a highly effective means of heat treating bark products before whole-sale.

Forestry, environmental and conservation organisations are increasingly turning to in-vessel heat treatment as a highly efficient, effective and environmentally-sound means of steam sterilising stripped tree bark into biosecure, heat-treated, sanitised stockpiles, free from pests and disease.

A key benefit of the FlowSteama heat treatment system from Stronga is the ability to create an audit trail and keep record of the biosecurity measures put in place; this practice is not yet employed holistically but will soon become mandatory as tree health regulations come to the fore.

Stronga produce two types of in-vessel heat treatment system – FlowSteama Vessa and FlowSteama Rova. Unlike the Vessa model, the FlowSteama Rova shown in the video can be easily moved on-site between stockpiles of bark mulch substrates, and also between adjacent sites, enabling smaller commercial companies to share one Rova between them.

When coupled with SteamBoila - Stronga’s mobile, low-pressure super-heated steam generator, suitable water supply and fuel source, FlowSteama Rova can be located adjacent to bark stockpiles for hours, days or longer, depending on the client’s biosecurity and hygienisation requirements. The extract below details the videoed bark heat treatment process in more detail.