Harvesting early thinnings for energy

The project ‘Harvesting Early Thinnings for Energy’ involved eight participating countries: Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US. The aim of the project was to investigate possibilities and initiate activities within and between the participating countries to advance the development of harvesting systems in early thinnings. Eight sub-projects were completed: (1) felling methods and technology, (2) bunch delimbing, (3) integrated harvesting, (4) microtractors for harvesting energy wood, (5) thinning with small crawler tractors, (6) small-scale harvesting of hardwood thinnings for energy, (7) forest transport of energy wood on soft terrain, and (8) chipping methods and technology. The results of these studies are reported.