Dealing with blowdown

[Ken]

The storm on July 5th has caused a lot of blowdown on forests in this area.  The vast majority of the wood is all leaning in the same general direction.  I haven't dealt with a lot of this before and am debating whether I should put my harvester trails parallel or perpendicular to the direction of the blowdown.  It's not going to be easy any way I do it but there is going to be lots of work for the next while.  Great timing as I am taking ownership of my new harvester in a few days.

[Jamie_C]

I always try to go perpendicular to the lean when dealing with blowdown. With fresh blowdown be prepared to go through more bars and chains than you are used to.

[BargeMonkey]

 We did a 28acre blow down clean up a few years ago, mixed hardwood and red pine. State forester mandated in the sale that 100% of the stumps be pointing back up. There wasnt any ryhme or reason to putting the roads in, this one looked like a grenade went off, sticks every which way. I wouldnt tackle a big one job like that if I wasnt in the cab, spring poles everywhere.

[Gary_C]

I cut a lot of blowdown after the July 1, 2011 wind storm in the St. Croix State Forest in Minnesota and WI and I'm glad it's done. You are right, it's good work but sure is a pain.

Assuming it all softwood, you have little choice but to follow the direction of the wind when you cut. If it's uprooted and leaning, that's the best. If it's uprooted and fully down, have plenty of chains on hand. If it's snapped off, you will get a lot of waste, depending on the lengths you can sell.

Most mills required a four foot buffer from any break. They don't like splintered ends. Most wood will stay good thru next winter, but by next spring the mills may stop accepting the blowdown.

If you have uprooted hardwood or big limbs on other trees that are down, there will be back pressure on the stumps. Sometimes you have to move up to the tops and pull the tree up to relieve the pressure before you cut it or you can get your bar pinched.

It's a lot easier to cut blowdown with a harvester, but the forwarder operator is not going to be happy. Since the trees are already half down, the harvester operator has little choice in felling direction and things get messy, especially if you have to sort species or lengths.

Good luck.

[Ken]

We have been working in a fair bit of blow down over the past few days.  Going to be slow work but the storm seems to have motivated lots of landowners to have some work done.  I think we will hire a feller buncher to go ahead of the harvester on some of the blocks.  Should help production and reduce bar and chain damage. Most areas of blow down are less than 5 acres but lots of small patches and individual trees. 

 

[Jamie_C]

You might have trouble finding a feller buncher to go ahead of you in a lot of blowdown. Their production will be less than half of normal, they will go through sets of teeth like you wouldn't believe and you will also get a lot more tree breakage. The buncher will have to stand the trees back up and swing them to the side to pile them. The cost for the buncher will more than likely be higher than any perceived savings.

[barbender]

I think a dangle head shines in blowdown.

[thecfarm]

I don't like to see the blow downs.  :(

[danabg]

We did a lot of blowdown work after hurricane Juan in2003.I'd definitely cut in perpendicular to the blowdown,dangle heads are better in it.Production will be low at first but you and your operators will figure out the best ways to go about cutting it after while.It was trickier in the winter because of the snow and cold temps,the stumps wouldn't always flop back down.If you have some really bad areas to do I'd try to get them done before freeze up if possible.

[barbender]

We worked some blowdown in 2012, we had a very powerful storm that laid some areas FLAT, one site had 9 stick bigtooth aspen- beautiful wood. It was so thick the processor had to work it parallel to how the trees were laying. If you tried to cut it perpendicular you would have had to cut a lot of stems in half to make your strips.

[1270d]

barbender you in a new rig or just change your avatar for the fun of it?

[barbender]

Ha! I finally figured out how to change my picture. The old one was a pic of a Ponsse Beaver a buddy was running, but I did just get into a little newer forwarder. '07 Ponsse Buffalo King, this will haul 7 cords if I mound it up good. With the slippery popple lately, that means about 6 cords makes it to the landing : I had an '05 Buffalo before, the ol' girl was pushing 20,000 hours but was still pretty tight actually. This machine has 6500 hours. I can make a skid a little faster and I'm moving a cord more wood each skid, so it makes it easier to keep up with the Ponsse Bear harvester I got put behind. It has a bigger bucket (grapple, pincher, grabber, hook etc. depending on your locale) so it will unload the bigger bunks in 10-12 grabs each, the Buffalo was 12-14. Me likey ;D