A long-term follow-up study of slash bundling in fast-growing eucalypt plantations

Spinelli, Raffaele (author), Magagnotti, Natascia (author), Assirelli, Alberto (author), Martins, João Pedro (author), Mihelič, Matevž (author)

The authors conducted a long-term follow-up study of a John Deere 1490 forwarder-mounted bundler owned by a Portuguese company and used for bundling logging residues from fast-growing eucalypt plantations located in Portugal and Spain. The study spanned 7 years, from 2011 to 2016. During this time, the machine clocked over 11,500 h and produced more than 200,000 bundles or 75,000 green tons of biomass. Bundle length was commonly 2.4 m, and bundle mass averaged 350 kg. Overall, the database contained 1752 daily records. Bundling productivity averaged 19 bundles per productive machine hour (meter hour, excluding all major delays). Mechanical availability was very high and averaged 93%. Utilization commonly ranged between 65% and 75%. Use and productivity showed a predictable seasonal trend and a slight decline over time. The latter might be due to wear, but also due to the increasingly challenging conditions faced by the company as the average worksite size sharply decreased from 2011 onwards. While almost extinct elsewhere, bundling seems to thrive in the Iberian plantations, possibly due to the industrial character of both eucalypt farming and bioenergy generation in the region. That allows the reaping of all integration benefits offered by bundling, while the cost of setting up a parallel biomass chain is minimized. Furthermore, bundling seems the ideal technique for efficient residue recovery where slash yields are low and roadside storage space is limited: these are the typical constraints of industrial eucalypt plantations, where planted area is maximized (=little landing space) and the largest possible proportion of the tree mass is turned into pulpwood (=relatively low residue yield).

• Language: English
• Keywords: harvesting, biomass, productivity, downtime, utilization
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 15 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 12, iss. 11, art. 1548
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-133051
• UDC: 630*61
• ISSN on article: 1999-4907
• DOI: 10.3390/f12111548
• COBISS.SI-ID: 84197891
• Publication date in RUL: 09.11.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Forests
• Shortened title: Forests
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1999-4907
• COBISS.SI-ID: 3872166

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 09.11.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: biomasa, produktivnost, donos, hitrorastoči gozdovi

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Italy, Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MiPAAF)
• Project number: 26329
• Acronym: AGROENER

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Pahernik foundation