Совершенствование технологии лесовосстановления на вырубках с применением энергонасыщенных тракторов

Abstract

Currently applied partial reforestation in cuttings and removal of stumps by uprooting have a number of significant technological, environmental and economic disadvantages. These are removal of the humus layer of soil outside the cleared strips, compaction and reduction of soil porosity; formation of understump holes and their local waterlogging; littering of noncleared belts of trees between strips with felling debris and uprooted stumps; low productivity of uprooting machines and high energy consumption of stump uprooting; termination of agrotechnical tending after 2–3 years after planting and impossibility of cleaning stands due to their obstruction for tractor units; low level of traction force of special forest tractors and their insufficient power for uprooting stumps. Technology, machines and tools for reforestation in cuttings become the subjects of the research. The aim of the research is to provide a comprehensive mechanization of the reforestation process in order to improve work productivity, reduce energy and material consumption of the technology and create conditions for the effective use of machines and tools in combination with energy-efficient tractors of the traction-energy concept, ensuring the elimination of harmful effects on soil and plants ecology. The results of achieving the set aim and objectives are substantiation of forestry and ecological, technical, and economic feasibility of using the technology based on the complete clearing of cuttings from felling residues, dead wood and coppice of shrub vegetation by their crushing using mobile mulchers; removal of stumps in cuttings through crushing them at a depth of 0.15–0.20 m by an upgraded MUP-4A machine with scattering chips over the planting area and subsequent continuous tillage with a disk harrow BDK-2.5. Harmful effects on the ecology of soil and plants are practically eliminated with an increase in productivity, and the grinded woody biomass mixed with the soil turns into an organic fertilizer. The elimination of mechanical obstacles such as felling residues, fallen trees and stumps makes it possible to effectively use energy-efficient tractors by combining technological operations and performing them in one pass of the unit, as well as increasing the working width and operating speeds. Conditions for efficient operation of forestry machines and tools on tractormotor traction to protect the forest from pests, diseases, and fires, and for mechanization of various types of thinning are being created. For citation: Bartenev I.M., Drapalyuk M.V. Improving the Technology of Reforestation in Cuttings with the Use of Energy-Efficient Tractors. Lesnoy Zhurnal [Russian Forestry Journal], 2021, no. 5, pp. 117–133. DOI: 10.37482/0536-1036-2021-5-117-133