The productivity and cost of both bundling locations was determined.A forwarder-mounted logging residue bundler (John Deere 1490D) was used to bundle residues in Eastern Finland, in a stand dominated by Norway spruce. Each bundle was 3 m long and 70 cm wide. Infield bundles were extracted to the landing with a forwarder. The forwarding distance ranged between 100 and 600 m, and between 30 and 90 m3 of residue was removed per hectare.
The productivity of the roadside bundling ranged between 48 to 53 bundles per working hour, with the average time to produce one bundle ranging from 83.6 to 92.3 seconds. The system costs for in-stand bundling (bundles delivered to roadside) were Euro 11.5 to Euro 13.7 per m3, and Euro 10.8 to 17.7 for the roadside bundling. Bundling at roadside resulted in minor cost savings of between Euro 0.10 and Euro 0.70 when the forwarding (extraction) distance of the loose material was less than 100 m and more than 50 m3 per hectare was removed.
This research, titled “Productivity and cost-efficiency of bundling logging residues at roadside landing”, was published in the Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering, Vol. 43(2) of 2012. The authors were J Laitila, M Kilponen and Y Nuutinen. Source: http://www.crojfe.com/articles-754