RFID Tags for Trees and Nursery Plants in India

What does a tree census in India record today?

• Mumbai (2026): the municipal corporation's census, reported by Wood Central in May 2026, covers almost three million trees across the city's 24 wards. It records canopy spread, height, age, species, health and geo-tagged coordinates for every tree, uses ground-penetrating radar to scan beneath trees, and is expected to run for about 18 months. The report mentions no physical tag on the trees.
• Delhi (2023): the Municipal Corporation of Delhi began its first tree census in its wards in December 2023, according to The Tribune. The horticulture department was to mark each tree with its serial number, with a manual count in the first phase and location and tagging through AI technology in the second. The report does not mention RFID.
• Shimla (2017–2018): in October 2017 a division bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, hearing a case on illegal felling of deodars, said that every tree within Shimla's municipal limits, apart from being numbered, must be tagged with radio frequency identification tags, and told the civic body to charge private owners for installing the tags on their trees (IANS, via Business Standard). In July 2018 The Pioneer described a Shimla pilot in which forest officers were tagging trees with numbers and implanting sensor chips meant to trigger an alarm. In December 2018 The Tribune described an experiment on 100 trees in the US Club area with a tag on each tree and one common reader; it reported that the active tags needed power and battery replacement, that cost was the barrier, and that the experiment had not gone further.

In these reports, numbers and coordinates are the norm, RFID has been ordered and piloted, and no city-wide RFID tree census has been reported. The Shimla trial also shows the trade-off between active tags, which can raise an alarm but need power, and passive tags, which cost less and suit an inventory but send no alert when a tree is cut.

Serial plate, QR label or RFID tag?

Many projects combine them: a printed number on the face of the RFID tag, so a person can still read it if the reader is not at hand. Our comparison of RFID and QR codes covers the trade-offs in more depth.

Which tag goes where: tie, stake or nail-in?

Our plant and tree tags come in three constructions. Each line below is from its product page, and each is priced on request.

All three are sold with a minimum order of 500 pcs. The wider ranges are under HF and NFC tags and UHF RFID tags.

HF or UHF for trees?

HF tags, like the standard PTH165 and TND1, are read a few centimetres from the reader, one at a time. That suits a census in which a surveyor stands at each tree and reads its tag before recording girth, height and health. UHF tags, like the PSU8 and the UHF version of the TND1, can be read several at a time from further away with a handheld, which suits walking a nursery row. Water and wet soil weaken UHF signals, which is why the PSU8's read range is confirmed with a sample on your own beds. Choose one frequency per project, because the readers follow the tags.

How are the tags read and enrolled?

• Enrolment at the office: an HRD20 HF desktop reader (USB, 5–10 cm) reads each HF tag before it goes out, so its number can be entered in the register.
• Field reading, UHF: the CX1000 UHF handheld, or a phone paired with the UBR90H Bluetooth UHF reader (up to 2 m, depending on the tag and surroundings).
• Field reading, HF: an NFC phone can read the PTH165 only if it is ordered with the NFC chip option, as its product page says; otherwise use an HF reader that supports the chip in your quotation. Phone readability depends on the chip, so ask us before you plan a phone-based survey.

Confirm reader and chip compatibility with a sample before you order in bulk. More readers are in the HF, NFC and LF readers and handheld readers ranges.

What goes on the tag?

Keep the tag to an identifier and keep the record in the database. A census number that encodes the ward and a serial is easy for surveyors to read off the printed face, and the same number goes into the chip: into the EPC on a UHF tag, or into the 1 KB memory of the F08 chip on an HF tag. Species, girth, height, health, photographs and coordinates belong in the census software, which can be updated on every survey without touching the tag. For how UHF EPC numbers are structured, see our EPC encoding guide.

How do nurseries and plantations use plant tags?

For nurseries, tagging the batch rather than every seedling keeps the cost down: one stake per bed or tray identifies the batch, the nursery software holds its species and sowing date, and the stake moves with the batch. Individual cable-tie tags make sense for mother plants, grafted stock, trial plots and plants sold with a record, where each plant needs its own history. Plantations and orchards use the tie tag on a branch or the nail-in disc on a trunk, depending on the tree.

Timber and forestry

At a log yard, a nail-in disc on each log end carries the log's number through measuring, stacking and despatch, and a reader at the yard gate or weighbridge can record the vehicle that took it out; our weighbridge automation guide shows how despatch is automated for minerals, and the same gate-and-weighbridge approach can be applied to timber. Tags on living trees are a different matter, below.

Does a nail-in tag harm the tree?

We make no claim either way. Whether, where and how deep to fix a spiked tag in a living tree is a decision for your horticulture or forest officer, who should specify the spike length and the position. For saplings and young trees, a cable tie around a branch avoids the question. The PTH165's tie is one-way and cannot be loosened, so fit it with room to grow, check it on each survey, and ask your horticulture officer how loosely to fit it.

What should a municipal tender for tree tags specify?

• The tag construction per tree class (tie, stake or nail-in), the frequency and the chip, confirmed with samples on site.
• The number of tags: the tree count plus a spares allowance agreed on site.
• The census number format, the data fields and who owns the data.
• Who fixes the tags, to whose specification, and who checks that every tag reads after fixing.
• The readers for enrolment and for field surveys, and how reads reach the census software.
• The re-survey cycle, and how lost or damaged tags are replaced.

Municipal teams doing other RFID work may also find our guides on RFID tagging of stray animals and RFID house tags for waste collection useful.