Risutec: EIC Accelerator Money for a Robot Tree Planter

Most trees in Europe's managed forests are still planted by hand, one seedling at a time. Risutec, a small engineering company from Nakkila in western Finland, has spent two decades building machines that do it mechanically: planting heads that bolt onto excavators and feed seedlings from an automatic container. In 2021 it asked the European Innovation Council to fund the next step, a machine that would prepare the soil, plant and record every tree without stopping.

The EIC paid €2,499,574 of the €3.57 million project under the Green Deal challenge. The prototype, Forest Maker, was built and field-tested. No sale of it was announced, and the company shrank from 19 employees to five. In February 2026 John Deere bought Risutec's tree-planting business, including the Forest Maker line.

Where Risutec Stands Today

On 17 February 2026 John Deere announced that it was acquiring Risutec's intellectual property and related assets, with closing expected that month and no financial terms disclosed. Forestry Journal reported that the deal covers Risutec's mechanical tree-planting equipment "including their Forest Maker product line" and quoted Mary Pat Tubb, John Deere's vice-president of global forestry: "We're excited about the synergies and talent the Risutec team adds to our existing forestry expertise." According to Koneviesti, John Deere Forestry Oy took over Risutec's operations and staff, the products will be sold through John Deere and Waratah dealers worldwide, and manufacturing continues in Risutec's existing premises in Nakkila. Maaseudun Tulevaisuus reported the same deal.

Risutec's established business is the PM planting machine and its automatic plant container, attachments that turn an excavator into a planter by scarifying the ground and placing seedlings from a rotating magazine. The company's website presents Forest Maker as its newest product, but no price, delivery or customer for it has been announced.

The company's figures, reported by Asiakastieto and Proff, show a small, previously profitable business under strain. Revenue in 2024 was €883,000 with an operating profit of €159,000. In 2025 the operating result swung to a loss of €186,000, the net loss was €283,000, the equity ratio fell to about zero and the workforce shrank to five.

The Technology: Planting Without Stopping

Mechanised planting today is stop-and-go: an excavator arm scarifies a spot, plants a seedling and moves on. Forest Maker was designed to work continuously. As NordicWoodJournal described the prototype in November 2023, it is a scarifier and planter with an automated plant feed, mounted on a Sampo FR48 forwarder, operated by one person, and meant for uniform ground such as abandoned farmland and plantations. A guidance system lays out trees in grids for different species and allows planting at night.

The other half of the concept is data. The machine records each tree as it is planted to build what CORDIS calls a "digital twin of forest", a map of every seedling for later management. The project report claims the approach can cut planting costs by five to ten times compared with existing methods. That figure is the company's own and has not been published with supporting data.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The project ran from 1 August 2022 to 31 July 2024. According to its closing report, the team designed and manufactured the machine, assembled it on a forwarder and field-tested it on real planting sites with "successful results". It says the system reached "a sellable state" and that the company was "in the critical stage of presenting the Forest Maker to the real-life customers". It also lists further work needed on manufacturing, maintenance and software integration.

1. An integrated automated planterDeliveredOne prototype built and field-tested within the project.
2. Tree-level digital twinReportedDescribed as enabled; no public demonstration of the data product.
3. 5 to 10x lower planting costNot shownA design claim without published field data.
4. Market launchNot seenNo sale, customer or delivery announced in the two years since the project closed.

What Has Happened Since

The staffing curve follows the project. Risutec hired from 8 people in 2021 to 19 in 2023, the build year, then fell to 11 in 2024 and 5 in 2025. The company stayed profitable while the grant was flowing and turned to a loss once it ended.

Why Europe Should Care

CORDIS tags the project as a 100% contribution to climate action, and the logic is straightforward: planting trees faster and more cheaply supports afforestation, the restoration of damaged forests and the regrowth of land after storms, fire and bark beetle outbreaks. A machine that needs one operator and can plant at night also reduces the manual labour that planting depends on today.

The Verdict

Risutec has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.