Forest Talk

The “suicide track” on Kent McKerras’ log site on River Ridge, a forest managed by Forest 360 about 25 minutes north of Whanganui, offers a challenging test for a Tatra 8x8 forwarder as the NZ Logger Iron Test soon found out.

Compared to purpose-built forwarders, the Tatra is fast. While a dedicated forestry forwarder will do 7 to 17.5kph, this Czech Republic-made unit will do a bit over 30 kph in this terrain unloaded, with a top speed of 110 kph in better grades..... more

The Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee is calling for public submissions on the Forests (Legal Harvest Assurance) Amendment Bill.

The Bill would amend the Forests Act 1949 to establish a legal harvest system. This system aims to provide assurance that timber supplied and traded has been harvested legally. The legal harvest system would require:

- that log traders, primary processors, importers, and exporters who operate above specified threshold..... more

John Deere has announced its latest operator assistance control feature, Intelligent Boom Control (IBC), for the 900 MH-Series Tracked Harvester. The development of this model is a result of global collaboration between the John Deere Wheeled Cut-to-Length and Full-Tree Forestry teams, aiming to implement IBC’s field-proven technology into the MH-Series of tracked harvesters.

With IBC, operators no longer need to control each independent boom function separately. ..... more

OneFortyOne's Jubilee Sawmill’s second Continuous Drying Kiln (CDK) is now online, completing a $16 million capital investment project at the site in Mount Gambier.

Jubilee Sawmill General Manager, Paul Hartung, says the kilns are working well and have increased site capacity while improving the quality of the timber dried.

“The CDK’s are powered by our own sawdust and wood waste offcuts, and their efficient design is using less energy to process more timber..... more

A new type of forest machine is currently driving around the forests of Sweden. It combines a low-impact approach, increased productivity and an improved operator environment and is the result of a major cooperative project that has been under way since 2019. The concept machine is called Centipede and it has been developed by eight Swedish forestry companies and a forest machinery manufacturer. It is currently being test driven and the results are promising.

With..... more

Working in harvesting crews on the East Coast for over 32 years, doing predominantly tall tower difficult terrain logging, Tairawhiti Timber Training’s Alan Paulson would often come across edge trees that were difficult to fall.

“I saw a need for purpose-built tree jacks as a jack is a very safe way of falling difficult trees, requires minimal effort compared to pounding on wedges with a big hammer, and saves cost, especially for a ..... more