Productivity Analysis of Modified Farm Tractors in Forwarding Industrial Wood Products

Public demands for forest products and services have been increasing gradually in many countries all over the world. Among the forest products, mostly round woods are produced in Turkey due to high economic value. On the other hand, there is a significant increase in demand for industrial woods in the domestic market in recent years. The reason behind this increase is the need of domestic companies in the wood-based panel industry for a large amount of wood raw material. . Farm tractors are the most widely used forest machinery in the extraction of industrial wood in Turkey. Farm tractors can be effectively used in mechanized harvesting operations after receiving some modifications and additional attachments. The modified farm tractors are affordable machinery for small logging contractors since their initial purchasing costs and hourly operating costs are quite low comparing with the forest harvesting equipment (i.e. skidder, forwarder, cable yarder). In this study, productivity of a modified farm tractor was analyzed during forwarding of industrial wood products. The study was implemented in Pinus nigra stand located in (?) the city of Afyonkarahisar in Turkey. In the study, the effects of forwarding distance on productivity were evaluated using statistical analysis. The results indicated that the most time-consuming work stage was unloading the truck and piling the wood products at the landing area, followed by ( in terms of time-consumption) collecting woods and loading the tractor at the stump. The average productivity of the forwarding operation was 6.06 stere/h (stere is the amount of wood pile with the height, width, and depth of one meter). It was also found that the productivity of the forwarding was significantly affected by the forwarding distance.