Atlantic Forestry November 2023

Modestly mechanized

On the second day of the Canadian Woodlands Forum (CWF) fall meeting (see conference coverage on page 16), when three busloads of delegates stumbled out into the dazzling sunshine on Elmsdale Lumber Co. woodlands, one of the big attractions was something relatively small.

Stepping outside the normal responsibilities of his job as an extension forester with Nova Scotia’s Family Forest Network, Ryan Dickie was at the controls of a mini excavator equipped with a shear head, demonstrating a modest approach to mechanized pre-commercial thinning (PCT). The machine, just five feet nine inches wide, rolled capably among crop trees, reaching in to snip competing stems in this regenerating stand.

Dickie, who is not a small guy, reported that the seemingly tiny cab is quite comfortable – with decent ergonomics, intuitive controls, and good AC for hot days. He said the work is pleasant, and time passes quickly as he listens to audio books. More to the point, the 3,840-kilogram excavator, a Hyundai R35Z-9A from A.L.P.A. Equipment, leaves very little ground disturbance – though he said the rubber tracks occasionally threaten to pop off, so steel ones might be better on rough terrain. The 24-horsepower engine, a 1.6-litre Yanmar, is quite sufficient for this work, and sips just a couple litres of diesel per hour.

The machine belongs to J.C. Contracting, a business run by Jason Casey, alongside his day job as forest resource manager at Elmsdale Lumber. Casey was interested in exploring options for ramping up silviculture on the mill’s 30,000-acre holdings, as well as other private lands. “If we get some of these challenging, overgrown blocks done, we can leave the more appealing blocks where manual crews can be more productive,” he said.

“My intention from the beginning was to maybe get some buy-in from other contractors. These shears are relatively inexpensive – and small excavators, it’s kind of a low-risk thing, if you want to move into the mechanized space. So I thought it might be a good fit for, say, an existing PCT contractor, who could just buy an excavator, put a shear on it. It could complement their existing business.”

Casey’s operation is small, with one full-time employee and a couple part-timers. “I usually run a machine on the weekends,” he said. “We’re going like that for now, trying to keep it simple.”

However, he’s exploring some complex questions. He has applied for funding assistance through the voucher program offered by the Nova Scotia Community College’s Centre of Forest Innovation – not for capital costs, but to support the extra work involved in trialing a new concept that holds promise for the industry.

“I’m trying to do some pre-treatment plots in some of these areas, and then determine what is an acceptable stem density, where the shear is maybe not so productive. I think it’s somewhere around 15,000-20,000 stems per hectare. Anything above that, and you probably should be looking at some kind of mulching system, if you’re looking at any kind of mechanized system.”

The Finnish-made TMK 200 head, supplied by Forotek Manufacturing in Saint-Jacques, N.B., weighs in at just 175 kilograms. The one demonstrated at the field day is equipped with the TMK Turbo option – a double-acting telescopic assembly comprising a smaller hydraulic cylinder that provides a quick response, and a larger one that kicks in when additional power is needed. Casey has another TMK 200 with the single HD cylinder option, which provides steady cutting force. “If you’re into bigger stands – anything over four inches – then you might as well have the HD cylinder, because even the Turbo cylinder would be activating the secondary cylinder, which makes it just as slow as the HD cylinder,” he said.

He got the HD unit to explore the feasibility of early-entry commercial thinning, but this remains a big unknown. “There are lot of challenges in recovering wood with a shear,” he admitted. “In some cases, maybe we should be looking at not even recovering wood – just to get the treatment done and get those stems down to 800 or 1,000 per hectare. It simplifies a lot of things when you just do thin-to-waste treatments; you’re not having to upgrade roads, and all the things that go into trying to recover wood. I’m trying to figure out where’s that number where it’s actually worthwhile to recover wood. Is it 50 tonnes per hectare? Is it 30 tonnes per hectare? We have some different ideas. We’ve done some trials on that.”

This warrants exploration, because Nova Scotia has a lot of woodlands that are due for a first commercial thinning. “We’ve been hitting silviculture really heavy since the early 2000s, since the registered buyers program came into effect,” said Casey. “A lot of those stands, where that age range is for first-entry CT – say, anything that was pre-commercially thinned between 2002 and maybe 2008 or 2010 – I did some GIS queries on that, in the provincial claim treatments layer, and we’re well over 100,000 hectares, stuff that potentially could be treated right now. To me, it’s concerning when we don’t really have a system that can handle that.”

Purpose-built thinning harvesters such as the Ponsse Fox can do great work in well-managed plantations, he noted, but many naturally regenerated stands are reaching the CT stage with high stem densities of 6,000-8,000 per hectare. “That’s very challenging for a traditional processing head to deal with – especially when you can only expect to pull out maybe 30 or 40 tonnes per hectare, if you’re lucky. I just thought it was a good time to start looking at some other options – because now, the way the system’s designed, it’s all based on wood productivity. You’ve got big machine payments and big fuel payments. That’s not realistic in a lot of these stands.”

With the support of Elmsdale Lumber, Casey can just do what’s best for the land, but he believes wider adoption of this approach will require some changes to the provincial silviculture funding system. “Areas that are past the ideal window, they’re obviously going to be more expensive to do,” he said. “So it becomes a conversation about how much money you’re willing to spend.”

As that conversation gets underway in Nova Scotia, it’s great to see creative and conscientious forest professionals bringing ideas to the table. DL