Abstract
Annual use, utilization, productivity and fuel consumption of three purpose-built and three excavator-based harvesters and processors were monitored for one work year. All machines were owned and operated by private contractors and were representative of the Italian machine fleet. Despite challenging mountain terrain, annual use ranged from 675 to 1525 h per year, and production from 3200 to 27,400 m3 per year. Productivity was lower for excavator-based units, and for machines working under a yarder, due to limited yarder capacity. Purpose-built machines offered higher utilization, productivity and fuel efficiency compared with excavator-based machines. Fuel consumption per m3 was 2.4 times greater for excavator-based units, compared with purpose-built machines. Excavator-based units offered financial and technical advantages, but their long-term market success will likely depend on future improvements in fuel efficiency, in the face of increasing fuel prices.
Highlights
IntroductionMechanized harvesting is performed by specialized machines that fell and process the trees (harvesters) or process already felled trees (processors) into commercial assortments, and by other units (forwarders) that extract these assortments to a landing [1]
Mechanized harvesting is performed by specialized machines that fell and process the trees or process already felled trees into commercial assortments, and by other units that extract these assortments to a landing [1]
The only statistically significant difference concerned fuel consumption per cubic meter, which was almost twice as high for excavator-based units compared with purpose-built units (Table 3)
Summary
Mechanized harvesting is performed by specialized machines that fell and process the trees (harvesters) or process already felled trees (processors) into commercial assortments, and by other units (forwarders) that extract these assortments to a landing [1]. Even where motor-manual harvesting techniques are still competitive due to cheap labour, mechanization may increase production capacity and anticipate future labour shortages [5]. For these reasons, harvesters and processors are common in many countries [6], and in Northern Europe where they were first developed and adopted [7,8]. In Italy, mechanized harvesting was introduced at the beginning of the new century [13], and by the Italian fleet counted over 200 units, including harvesters, processors and forwarders [14]
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