Autumn is just coming up to it's peak here at the moment.......
You can click on the picture to enlarge it and see the detail.
All now until Monday.
Friday, 31 October 2008
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
BIFF Machinery Demo at Dunalastair Water & Craigvinean Forest
This was a demonstration organized by BIFF (Breadalbane Initiative for Farm Forestry) yesterday. This small Forcat forwarder is the only one of its type in the country. It appears to be a cost-effective means of extracting timber from farm woodlands without causing ground damage. This first site was essentially a swamp and you would never know that the machine had been here. The machine then moved to Craigvinean Forest near Dunkeld to move much larger timber on a steep slope. This machines costs about £25,000, a fraction of the cost of a commercial timber forwarder. It would allow work to be done in Perthshire that would not otherwise be contemplated, and the scale of operations is certainly more suited to local farm conditions. The 80 foot winch is especially useful for tricky sites. The Forcat can pull a 3 tonne load on a trailer, and can skid individual logs up to 1.5 tonnes or so on firmer ground. The effective forwarding distance is approx 300 metres or so, allowing timber to be taken to a hard standing for uplift, or to be processed in to fuelwood. This type of machine could allow a lot of unmanaged woods in Perthshire to be worked, especially those alongside rivers, which would also help the riparian environment. We would certainly support efforts by BIFF to have one introduced to Highland Perthshire.
For further information you can contact Greg Thexton at the Forestry Commission at 01738 442830 or check out the machine online at www.forcat.ca.
The machine is Canadian. You can enlarge any of these pictures by clicking on them. They extend to a second page here as well, and there are a few videos of the machine at work.
Video- Forcat at Work
This is the Forcat pulling timber out of the swampy ground. This site is an SSSI, well known for it's wildflowers, and the trees are being removed to extend the area of open ground. Not disturbing the site too much is an important consideration........
Video- Off again........
You can see here how quickly this little machine can move, pulling trees out of a swamp with grass having grown up through them as well, not an easy task.......
Video- On to Craigvinean Forest
After this demonstration at Dunalistair, the machine was moved down to Craigvinean Forest near Dunkeld, managed by Forest Enterprise. The purpose here was to show how the machine could handle much bigger material on steeper slopes. There follows a few more videos of the machine at work and a series of photos of the site at Craigvinean.
Video- Winching in a big fir log
You can see that this is quite a weight for this little machine to be moving........
Video- Adjusting the load
You can see here that the driver is having to carefully adjust the log to get it over this lip at the top of the slope. As with all jobs involving small machines and big loads, thinking is important.........
Video- Away off down the slope
This is quite a weight to be having to control going down a steep slope like this......
Low-loader required
The machine weighs 1.8 tonnes and can be transported easily using a trailer and 4WD vehicle.
Douglas Fir Stand at Craigvinean
This wonderful stand of Douglas Fir is a plantation on an ancient woodland site, or PAWS. The continuous cover system of forestry here will benefit the site by slowly opening up the canopy and allowing the ground flora to recover. At the same time, the very large Douglas Fir trees should increase significantly in value as they grow. You can see from these shots that this is nothing like your bog-standard Sitka Spruce plantation, combining good commercial forestry, site care & restoration and wonderful amenity value. Well done Forest Enterprise.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
Autumn in Highland Perthshire
Although our native tree species can look spectacular in autumn, non- natives such as beech and norway maple (below) can make a spectacular contribution to the landscape at this time of year.
There then folows a series of photos of the Poplar Avenue in Aberfeldy.......
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