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Harvesting Guides With funding from NCR-SARE and Pioneer Forest, LLC, EOFC conducted a harvest study to determine whether crop tree management was profitable for landowners and loggers. In this type of management, small and poor quality trees are removed to favor growth of selected crop trees, which then acquire higher value. Thus, co-harvesting saw logs and smallwood improves the forest and its earnings potential. A surprising result was that smallwood harvest paid for itself and that loggers could afford to pay landowners a modest fee of $5/ton of blocking and $4/ton of pulpwood sold in addition to the stumpage or shares paid for saw timber. We also found that cost of installing erosion control structures was minor. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Thinning Trial Summary A thinning trial was conducted on a site typical of overstocked, saw log-sized, upland hardwood stands on steep (30%), stony terrain in the Ozarks. Replicate plots were harvested by conventional (chainsaw + skidder) and mechanized (small tracked skidsteer + feller-buncher and harvester + forwarder) logging equipment. The heavy thinning prescribed by a crop tree management approach to improve forest health removed an average of 40 t/ac of pole wood and saw logs. It resembled a shelterwood cut, leaving an average saw log volume of 3,600 bf/ac. All three logging technologies proved mechanically competent under these conditions. The crawler/hotsaw was not cost effective, while the harvester/forwarder was at least as cost effective as the conventional chainsaw/skidder technology. The high productivity and utilization of the harvester/forwarder compensated for its high capital cost. Biologically and economically significant damage to the boles of residual trees was low and comparable among technologies, as was soil disturbance. Crown damage was significantly greater for the harvester/forwarder, but still acceptable. Thus, crop tree management with simultaneous removal of saw logs and pole wood is feasible at acceptable levels of environmental impact for all three technologies. Lack of site and operator replication and incomplete cost analyses over a very limited time prohibit generalization of these conclusions. The condensed report with a spreadsheet for calculating machine costs may be downloaded below as a Word file with embedded Excel files. The Word file is password protected, but you can open it by selecting the "Read Only" button.
Peter Becker Addressing the Crowd Ponsse Harvester
Track Harvester Harvested Logs
Portable Sawmill
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