‘A growing machine’: Scotland looks to vertical farming to boost tree stocks

Hydroponics unit can produce saplings six times faster than it takes to grow them naturally outdoors

It is a long way from the romance of a sun-dappled Highland glen. Picture instead a white cube equipped with the computer-controlled automation you would sooner expect to see in an Amazon or Ikea warehouse.

Scotland's state forestry agency believes this prefabricated structure, erected at an agricultural research centre near Dundee, could play a significant part in its quest to help combat climate heating by greatly expanding the country's forest cover.