Farming Simulator 22: Poplars FS 22 guide, tips
On this page of the Farming Simulator 22 guide you will read about planting, using and harvesting poplars.
Last update: 02 January 2022
Poplars are one of the categories of plants in Farming Simulator 22. On this page, you will learn how to plant poplars, collect them using a forage harvester, and how to process them into wood chips and then sell them.
Planting
The main feature of poplars is that you don't have to really work on them. Just plant them once and you can forget about them for a year and a half - the time they need for growth. They do not require periodic work, fertilization, or replanting. In addition, you can take care of them in the winter.
You need a special planter to plant poplars - Damcon PL-75 (Forestry equipment tab). It is worth renting it instead of buying. Place the pallet with saplings (available in the store) on the machine - loading is automatic, you do not have to use the loader. You don't have to plow - you can plant in any field after harvest. The machine does the plowing. One pallet is enough to cover almost an entire hectare.
The planter has the option to create a new field. In this way, you can plant poplars in any place/on any strip of land. Since vehicles pass through them like any other plant, you can use the free space to plant them.
If you decide to plant poplars in a field, they will be planted every two rows by default (when an employee does this). However, there is nothing preventing you from ordering them to replant the poplars by placing the tractor next to them to fill the empty strip of land.
Poplars don't require any work. That is, fertilizing the field or mulching before planting them won't give you any benefits. Poplars have to be planted once - they will grow back.
Harvesting
Using the tractor with a header
You can easily harvest poplars using a special chaff cutter attached to the tractor (Lacotec LH II, Chaff cutter headers tab) together with the appropriate poplar header (New Holland 130FB, in the same tab). It is worth using a large tractor and weights on the rear or wide wheels - the harvester with the add-on weighs a lot.
Harvesting with the forage harvester
To harvest poplars, you need a silo with the right poplar header. This is a profitable activity: the tractor does the work at the same pace, and it can easily maneuver with almost any trailer, which is not so much the case with the forage harvester.
Balers
In the Balers tab you will also find a special poplar baler! You can use it immediately, right after purchase - just drive it across the field to automatically cut and press the bales. Disadvantage - bales are very small (2000L capacity). Trying to hire employees to work with this machine will also be problematic. Regardless, the harvest is quite fast and wide, it does not require a very powerful machine or large investments.
Trailers
When choosing a trailer, you can use almost any standard dump truck. However, trailers for sugar cane are also worth considering (e.g. TT Colossus 10.000, Sugar cane cultivation technology tab) or an auger trailer (e.g. Hawe SUW 5000, Auger wagons tab).
Selling
Contrary to Farming Simulator 19, you won't be selling the wood chips in a sawmill or in a biogas plant - you can pick up the chips in a sawmill when you deliver wood to it - the chips will be a by-product. The list of chip sale points and their prices can be viewed as usual in the Prices tab in the main menu.
Poplars need about 1.5 years to be ready for harvest. The wood chip harvest is 75,000 litres/hectare with standard planting: you can double the harvest per hectare by planting poplars a second time in the free spaces between the rows.
The wood chips can only be stored on the ground or in a trailer. It's best to sell wood chips in January for about 200€ (average level of the Economic difficulties).