Effect of Prior Tree Marking on Cutting Productivity and Harvesting Quality

Prior tree marking is used to guide loggers or forest machine operators on which trees to cut to achieve the desirable silvicultural quality of a thinning treatment. In the future, this beneficial but expensive human work could be automated with advanced driver assistance systems. This study aimed to investigate the effect of conventional prior tree marking on cutting productivity and harvesting quality of the first and later thinnings. A comparative time study was conducted with four experienced harvester operators. The operators thinned 4825 stems with the cut-to-length (CTL) harvesting method in eight thinning stands. The time consumption of the different time elements of cutting work was measured to model the cutting productivity with average values or regress these values against the stem volume or density of removal. Prior tree marking increased the cutting productivity by an average of 2.8% in the first thinnings and 2.7% in later thinnings by reducing the time consumption of boom-out (positioning the harvester head for cut) and moving. The operator effect was notable, even though only experienced operators participated in the study. For some operators, prior tree marking did not make cutting work more efficient, and sometimes hampered it. Prior tree marking improved the quality of the remaining stands in thinnings by producing a more accurate density of remaining trees after the harvesting operation in relation to thinning guidelines. When the stands were not marked, the operators chose trees of poor quality with almost the same accuracy as the forester. These findings lay the foundation for the next-generation operators' guidance and decision support systems, which could detect trees around the harvester and guide the operator in tree selection and managing better thinning intensity in cutting work. Although prior tree marking increased productivity only marginally, the improvement in the quality of harvesting operations must be acknowledged.