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| Photo: Erkki Oksanen |
Mechanized energy wood harvesting from thinnings is nowadays mainly carried out with the whole-tree method. Due to t he low moisture content and chip size variation chips made of delimbed energy wood are suitable for burning in small furnaces. In larger furnaces they can be used to even out quality variation of whole-tree and logging residue chips. This study was carried out in collaboration with Metla and TTS Institute (Work Efficiency Institute) to clarify different methods and costs of mechanized harvesting of delimbed energy wood. The study also covered delimbed energy wood regarding its available potential in Finland and measurement with the harvester’s measuring device.
Harvesting of delimbed energy wood causes only a slight nutrition drain, which makes harvesting possible also on dry mineral soils and peatlands, thus increasing the available energy wood potential. The productivity in delimbed energy wood harvesting can be significantly improved by the multi-tree handling technique. This means vertical bundling of several trees with the harvester and delimbing and cross-cutting them as one handling unit. Due to the lower yield productivity of the thinning is reduced by 10–40 % compared with whole-tree harvesting. Delimbing increases the load size in forest transportation and therefore increases the productivity of forest transportation by 10–20 % compared with whole-tree harvesting.
The project was part of the Wood energy technology programme of Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and it was funded by Tekes, Komatsu Forest Ltd, Sampo Rosenlew Ltd and Waratah-OM Ltd.
Project 7152: Harvesting alternatives and cost factors of delimbed energy wood
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