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11-11-2002, 10:57 PM

(Scott Murphy) wrote in message . com...
"Joe Zorzin" wrote in message ...
"Larry Harrell" wrote in message
om...
mhagen wrote in message
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One of my beefs with the current style of "mechanical thinning" with
feller bunchers and skidders is that landing sizes are rather big. To
accomodate the literal mountain of slash from whole-tree yarding and
the multiple machines on the landing, you end up with a landing nearly
as big as a helicopter landing. Combine that with the almost
inevitable scorching of adjacent trees when that mountain of slash is
burned. Maybe the USFS has to make the "purchaser" remove the slash,
hoping co-gen electric plants would buy the cheap fuel for at least
the transportation costs. It sure beats polluting our air and letting
that energy go out into space.

Why not use forwarders and leave all that junk in the woods?

Good call, that stuff makes good slow-release fertilizer. Important
to think about the definition of coarse woody debris? How coarse is
coarse? Large branches on the west coast probably compare with
medium-sized trees here in the east. Lots of critters need that
stuff. One solution to the full-tree harvest system they started
using around here, maybe 5 years ago, is to use skidders to drag all
the slash back into the cuts from the landings and spread it around.
It doesn't look too bad when they're done... almost like a CTL
harvest, I'd argue that the slash is spread even better.

Coarse woody debris is defined by many people at the Forestry Sciences
Lab at Oregon State University as "debris larger than 4" in diameter".
In other words, this is the material which is unlikely to be totally
burnt in a cool forest fire.

Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com