Intermediate Supports or Jacks

[Skeans]

I've been told, countless times, that tires cause more compaction than tracks.

But my experience is that tracks tear a lot more stuff up, and are generally a heavier machine, there for the effect is null.

Mean while a small wheeled skidder is nimble and as long as you are careful of road placement should be hardly any damage at all..

But I don't make policy, I just make messes on private ground.

A lot of the issue with track or Wheel skidding is the turns into the landing to drop a turn as well as the countless times up and down a skid road.

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[bitzer]

I've heard that scarification from a tracked machine is welcomed by the foresters. I often find myself cross tracking and widening my skid trails as they compact through out the course of the job. Other then than only a pass or two on decent ground and you wouldn't really know i was there. it's the main roads that get it.

 

[slowp]

I've been told, countless times, that tires cause more compaction than tracks.

But my experience is that tracks tear a lot more stuff up, and are generally a heavier machine, there for the effect is null.

Mean while a small wheeled skidder is nimble and as long as you are careful of road placement should be hardly any damage at all..

But I don't make policy, I just make messes on private ground.

So much depends on the person running the machine--their skill and professionalism can do wonders. I've seen areas torn up by little machines with guys running them who didn't give a ---- and then a guy on a cat with a humongus blade not scar up much of anything because he was one with his Cat.

 

[1270d]

Even though its a different stand type here, the authorities have flip flopped a time or two on what equipment type they prefer. There has been a big push toward CTL machines for the past 15 years and now some land owners are wanting bunchers etc back. Apparently the wheeled harvesters and forwarders aren't chewing up the ground enough like Bitzer said. Some guys we have cut for want trees ripped up by the roots and left laying there for habitats, can't do that with CTL stuff. One even wanted us to intentionally create furrows and mounds with the buncher tracks.

Some of the sites we cut, such as the one I am on now, were rutted and torn to pieces last cut and there is pretty much no evidence of any lasting effects. The trees growing out of the old ruts are just as numerous and healthy as the ones on the undisturbed ground.

Are the not rut, no soil disturbance policies based mostly on keeping the public happy with how things look? Everything seems to heal up nicely on its own.

Edit...I realized everything written pertains to our generally flattish ground and would be bad news on a big slope.

 

[Skeans]

Even though its a different stand type here, the authorities have flip flopped a time or two on what equipment type they prefer. There has been a big push toward CTL machines for the past 15 years and now some land owners are wanting bunchers etc back. Apparently the wheeled harvesters and forwarders aren't chewing up the ground enough like Bitzer said. Some guys we have cut for want trees ripped up by the roots and left laying there for habitats, can't do that with CTL stuff. One even wanted us to intentionally create furrows and mounds with the buncher tracks.

Some of the sites we cut, such as the one I am on now, were rutted and torn to pieces last cut and there is pretty much no evidence of any lasting effects. The trees growing out of the old ruts are just as numerous and healthy as the ones on the undisturbed ground.

Are the not rut, no soil disturbance policies based mostly on keeping the public happy with how things look? Everything seems to heal up nicely on its own.

Edit...I realized everything written pertains to our generally flattish ground and would be bad news on a big slope.

Been on government ground we had to do that stuff well thinning a fire hazard waiting to happen. Plus Oregon has a two up and down law for clear cuts.

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[slowp]

It would all depend on soil type. That's another thing that One Size Fits All does not apply to. On private land, down the road from me is flat land that was logged off with ground based equipment. The ruts are still visible and the new owners are trying to get trees growing on it and have had the yellow tree problem. One resident has planted alder alongside the Doug fir seedlings and they are greening up.

The ground was most likely bladed quite a bit since it was destined to be subdivided and sold. Across the road is a tree farm with healthy looking saplings growing. I'll bet they had their logger take a bit more care.

 

[SliverPicker]

I can't imagine that the mass of a shovel causes less net soil disturbance due to compaction than a rubber-tired skidder does through agitation. That seems a really arbitrary rule.

After 5 years of Forestry School (joke) and a lifetime of careful observation I can confidently declare that "soil compaction" is a made-up affliction. ONE frost and it is gone.

 

[SliverPicker]

Sorry Patty.

 

[madhatte]

It's definitely a less permanent kind of disturbance than many others, but it's easy to spot long-abandoned skid trails in DEM data in GIS. That means it only LOOKS like it's gone. Also, the first year or so after a disturbance is when it's easiest for runoff to move soil downhill... say, into a stream, where it gets stuck in the fins 'n' feathers folks' craws. In all, it's best to make the attempt to minimize compaction because it makes everybody's life easier.

 

[northmanlogging]

the argument there is that old skid roads where largely done by big cats/dozers pulling big wood, and that modern skidders have bigger tires and therefore less ground pressure.

But I'm just a dumb logger, i do not unastan how they cal que late ground pressure anyway..

 

[Skeans]

the argument there is that old skid roads where largely done by big cats/dozers pulling big wood, and that modern skidders have bigger tires and therefore less ground pressure.

But I'm just a dumb logger, i do not unastan how they cal que late ground pressure anyway..

Not sure either but looking at it normally a tractor carrier has less pressure just guessing here because of the surface area and weight is spread out.

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[slowp]

What if the ground rarely freezes very hard? You know, global warming and all. I kinda think our pummy soil doesn't compact much though and sometimes it would be nice if it did. I have been told things get more clayish to the west of here.

 

[Skeans]

What if the ground rarely freezes very hard? You know, global warming and all. I kinda think our pummy soil doesn't compact much though and sometimes it would be nice if it did. I have been told things get more clayish to the west of here.

No reason to get the people of Portland and Seattle involved now.

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[madhatte]

We're all golf-ball-sized gravel here along Puget Sound. Glacial outwash and till, y'know. It is more clayey to the south and to the west.

 

[northmanlogging]

Yup, patches of clay but mostly sand and gravel, about 6" of topsoil in most places. Unless yer in the mountains, then its granite, shale or basalt