Evaluation of RFID UHF tags for electronic marking of standing trees

Precision forestry is one of the mainstreams of future forest engineering development. Optimized operations rely on efficient and exact transmission of information regarding forest stands up to the single trees. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags with Ultra High Frequency (UHF) technology are a promising tool for linking information to a single tree or log along the timber supply chain. Nevertheless their use poses several challenges, one of most relevant being the moisture content of wood which can influence the readability of tags. The present study shows the results of a test exploring the effect of different levels of moisture content, different positions of the tags on the tree (below and above bark, on bare wood) and different distances between tag and reader. The results will serve as guidelines for addressing the following practices of electronic tree marking in the frame of the EU project SLOPE.