Harvesting alternatives for mallee agroforestry plantations in Western Australia

The authors tested two harvesting systems especially designed for mallee agroforestry plantations on farmland. Both systems were based on versatile forest technology commonly used for conventional logging operations. They differed especially for the felling technology: small-scale drive-to-tree or industrial swing-to-tree equipment. Both systems were tested side-to-side on 12 experimental plots each. The resulting harvesting cost was 22 and 27 AU$ t(-1), for the industrial and the small scale system, respectively. Chipping represented between 60 and 80 % of the overall harvesting cost, and offered much room for improvement. The industrial system always offered the lowest harvesting cost, regardless of annual usage, when equipment mobilisation costs were not considered. The productivity of conventional forestry equipment was strongly dependent on belt stocking and tree size. If the diameter at ankle height dropped below 10 cm, economic viability decreased very rapidly.