Comparing different systems to harvest and transport small-diameter wood

A Promobio publication summarises different system options in small-wood.

Recent research results from the logging of small trees for fuel in Finland are summarised into a short document, titled “Harvesting and transport of small-diameter wood”. In the logging operations, a manual system, a mechanised felling and forwarding system, and a harwarder system were compared. When comparing manual and mechanised felling, the costs were very similar. However the forwarding operation following the manual felling was nearly double the cost of the mechanised felling. Logging costs were highest with the harwarder system, although as tree size and volume removed per hectare increased, the costs became comparable to the manual system.

The costs of transporting and chipping delimbed logs were compared to transporting whole-trees and bundled trees (all small trees for energywood). All wood was harvested using a conventional harvester head with multiple tree handling accessories. Harvested wood was either chipped at roadside or at a terminal. The delimbed log system had much higher productivity than the whole-tree system. Regarding the whole-tree bundling, the savings on transport costs could not offset the high felling and compaction costs, and this system was therefore the least competitive. Source: http://www.promobio.eu/tiedostot/tiedotteet/Harvesting%20and%20transport%20of%20small-diameter%20wood1.pdf