The harvesting of roundwood Essays - Forestry, Logging,

The harvesting of roundwood The first stage of timber processing is the wood harvest. Felled trees with branches removed and trunks cut to length for transportation are commonly referred to as roundwood'. European forests are some of the most intensively managed in the world. Depending on the topography, the common practice usually ranges from: Clear felling and artificial regeneration of whole stands of plantation trees. Natural regeneration under shelterwood. Mixed and natural regeneration combined with selective cutting Clear fell harvesting with specially customised harvester heads offer the greatest efficiencies in terms of annual yield due to the regular trunk diameter of consecutive farmed trees. It would take 24 chainsaw operators to match this output manually. In northern Europe, output of 18 m3 per machine hour can be achieved with skilled mechanical operators when cutting softwood trunks of approximately 0.3 m3. Thinning and clear-cut harvesting operations are increasingly mechanised for optimum productivity, particularly in Nordic countries where almost 100% of logging is fully mechanized, integrating cut-to length systems. Mechanized round wood harvesting is carried out by customised cutting heads mounted on a hydraulically controlled harvester vehicle. This head' is equipped with a gripping mechanism, debarking rollers, a chainsaw and de-limbing knives. These line harvesting processes can occur at speeds of up to 5 m/s. A Typical mechanical timber harvester head displaying gripper and debarking rollers. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116306050 Reference The wood from the trees: The use of timber in construction. (2017, February). Retrieved February 7, 2018, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116306050