Working 40Ha (2 x 20) of sub-3' DBH firewood trees on mild to steep terrain.

[KiwiBro]

More and more of this seems to be appearing on my radar. These aren't lumber trees. Good for firewood only. Access is only around the edges at present.

Currently, tractor+winch and highlead system and a blend of either skidding to road or roading to landings. There has to be a better way.


Was wondering about a lil' digger with small processor head rather than any sort of cable system (I'm not sure cable is the way to go unless there's no other way). Essentially I'd like to keep it to under three people.

Any suggestions?

 

[StihlKiwi]

Improvements on that would cost money, would you have enough work to make them worth it? Theres bound to be more and more woodlots coming up for harvest..

40ha of ####ty pine on a hill sounds fun, how long you reckon you will take?

 

[StihlKiwi]

A cable skidder would work well - you can drive over the milder stuff and winch trees out of the steeper stuff

 

[ShaneLogs]

Maybe a harvester or a shovel loader with a harvester head on it so you can pick the trees out of the slash and limb and stuff ?

 

[slowp]

Is a digger an excavator?

If so, you are starting to get into what we call shovel logging. The Canadians call it Hoe Chunking, I think.

[video=youtube_share;_em9GZEXAW4]http://youtu.be/_em9GZEXAW4[/video]

 

[KiwiBro]

Improvements on that would cost money, would you have enough work to make them worth it? Theres bound to be more and more woodlots coming up for harvest..

40ha of ####ty pine on a hill sounds fun, how long you reckon you will take?

Tea tree predominantly. Spread over many titles. Far more than 40 Ha but I'm only considering that which can be legally extracted. I do know of another block of it (just under 180Ha) but how that can be legally cleared is beyond me but suffice it to say it will be cleared unless someone dares to step in and throw the book at the perps. There's more of this and also small pine lots popping up for me lately and I'm very frustrated by the costs and lack of speed of my current set-up - which was cooked up when 2Ha was a big job for me.

I've watched a few systems employed by others over the last few months. Cable and also shovel. I'm very surprised by the slopes they can work the digger (excavator) on. It just seems like when it has to cover too much ground shovelling, then cable is better. A digger with a small processor head can fell/delimb/bunch/shovel (although I suspect if heaps of shovelling was needed it might be best to swap to a stand-alone grapple), can cut roads/tracks/landings, load trucks with logs or firewood, scoot around the far ridge of a gulley anchoring/moving a skyline for a cable operations if need be, etc.

A digger with the right attachments just seems like a more efficient way to get it from standing wood onto trucks in all but the steepest or most sensitive terrain or where too much shovelling would be needed or when it gets too wet to be safe.

Is there enough work to justify the costs? there'd need to be a huge amount of due diligence done on that. But for now I'm just kicking ideas about and asking experienced pros for their suggestions.

 

[Rounder]

Might take a look at yoders

Dual Winch Yarder Log Loader, Forestry Conversions, Excavator Conversions

Or maybe a tong thrower conversion (Jammer)

Hydraulic Log Loader/Tong Thrower Conversion, Forestry Conversions, Excavator Conversions