Abstract

Marginal lands could be utilized for increasing energy biomass production independent of industrial roundwood procurement. Dedicated energy biomass production systems on such sites would be based on low stand establishment cost, clear-cutting at an early stage, and coppice regeneration. Harvesters designed for the processing of industrial roundwood are inefficient or too costly to use in small-diameter and dense stands, while insufficient cutting capacity and uneven space distribution of trees limit the use of modified agricultural harvesters developed for short-rotation woody-crop plantations (e.g. willow). We constructed time consumption models for clear-cutting and forwarding of whole trees from unthinned, small-diameter stands. The data originated from naturally afforested downy birch-dominated stands located in a cutaway peat production area in northern Finland. Stand age varied from 14 to 29 years and stand density was 5150-160,250 trees per hectare. In clear-cutting, a medium-sized forest harvester equipped with an accumulating felling head fitted with a circular saw disc was used, and subsequent forwarding was done using a modified medium-sized forwarder. Cutting productivity was 3-11oven-dry tons (ODt) per effective hour (E-0-h), and was highly dependent on stand characteristics (e.g. mean whole-tree volume). At a distance of 300 m, for example, the productivity of forwarding in the time study plots was 6.7-10.4 ODt E-0-h(-1). Our study indicates that energy biomass can be harvested from young downy birch thickets efficiently by clear-cutting with appropriate machinery. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords

SRC; Bioenergy; Fuel wood; Coppice; Clear-cutting; Downy birch

Published in

Biomass and Bioenergy
2016, Volume: 88, pages: 142-151
Publisher: Elsevier

SLU Authors

• Bergström, Dan

  • Department of Forest Biomaterials and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
SDG15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2016.03.016

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/78100