The Southern Forest Products Association (SFPA) has announced that, for the seventh consecutive year, shipments of Southern Pine lumber recorded an increase from the previous year.
Shipments in 2016 totalled 17.34 billion board feet (Bbf), an increase of 4% over the volume shipped in 2015 (16.6 Bbf) and 47% above 2009 shipments (11.8 Bbf).
Tabulation of Southern Pine shipment totals is a cooperative effort with the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau (SPIB) and Timber Products Inspection (TP).
A full-grown Southern pine beetle is still about half the length of a grain of rice, but state and federal forestry officials worry this tiny bug could have a monster impact this year on the state of Alabama’s $11 billion wood products industry reports Dennis Pillion AL.COM.( dpillion@al.com)
“With Southern pine beetles, the Latin name (Dendroctonus frontalis) actually means tree killer, and it is,” said Edward Loewenstein, associate professor of silviculture at Auburn University’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences. “It is well-suited to take trees out.”
This year’s concerns are rooted in the large number of trees left stressed or already dying from last year’s record-setting drought. Drought-stressed trees don’t make sap as well as healthy ones, and that sticky sap is the tree’s primary defense against beetles.
Southern pine beetles carve distinctive winding tunnels or galleries like these under the bark of their host trees. Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M Forest Service, Bugwood.org
“We’re in crisis right now because any organism that’s under stress is less able to deal with stress, and all of our pine beetles, bark beetles are stressors to trees,” Loewenstein said. “When you’ve got this extraordinary drought like we had this past year, that is a huge stressor put on not only individual trees but entire stands and entire landscapes.”
The results can be devastating to forest industries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates a widespread outbreak that begin in 1999 in east Tennessee caused more than $1 billion in timber losses.
Foresters fear the dead or dying trees left by the drought could provide fuel for a similar large-scale infestation, and are already seeing evidence of increased beetle activity, even though outbreaks usually don’t flare up until the late spring or early summer.
“Normally in the winter you don’t see a lot of dying pines and beetle activity, but we’re seeing that a lot more this year,” said Tim Albritton, staff forester with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Alabama. “We can tell this year is building up to be a pretty bad year for beetles.”
Foresters from the Alabama Forestry Commission, the USDA, the Auburn University School of Forestry, Alabama Farmers Federation (ALFA) and various private entities met in Montgomery last week to discuss how to handle the situation and share information about the extent of the problem, and are planning regular coordinated efforts among government agencies and private landowners to minimize the damage.
John Goff, director of the AFC’s Forest Protection Division, said during the meeting that the Commission began taking flights in February to look for beetle damage in Alabama’s forests and have already discovered 187 likely beetle infestations affecting 14,262 trees.
“We think the stars have aligned and we have the definite potential for major outbreaks this year,” Goff said.
Suspected damage from Southern pine beetle infestations is shown via aerial photographs.Alabama Forestry Commission
The AFC usually doesn’t start logging flights to look for beetle damage until May or June, but started early this year, in part due to the large number of calls the commission is getting from landowners to report possible infestations.
“Our phones are blowing up,” said Mark Martin, assistant forest health coordinator for AFC. “We’re getting calls left and right, every day.”
The number of beetle infestations has climbed for the last four years even without a major drought, and state forestry officials fear this year could be the worst in memory for Southern pine beetles.
Goff said the AFC identified 109 Southern pine beetle outbreaks in 2013, 168 in 2014, 378 in 2015 and 691 last year.
Multiple species of beetle to worry about
There are multiple species of pine beetles threatening Alabama trees this year, but the Southern pine beetle is the most feared because it attacks trees in clumps, leaving an expanding swath of brown, dead trees winding through the state’s evergreen forests.
That’s mostly because Southern pine beetles can’t fly very far, said Dana Stone, the Alabama Forestry Commission’s forest health coordinator. Southern pine beetle infestations often start in stressed trees, but can spread to and kill even healthy trees as the number of beetles increases.
Other beetles, like the Ips engraver beetle, are more likely to attack scattered individual trees in the forest rather than leaving an expanding cluster of dead trees behind in the woods.
“It’s important for landowners to know what kind of pest they may have in their trees,” Stone said. “If it’s the Southern pine beetle, they may want to go in and try to stop the spread of the infestation.
“If it’s an Ips engraver beetle, it depends on how many trees are dying, but you may want to just let it be and let the situation take its course.”
Landowners who suspect beetle infestation in their trees are encouraged to contact the AFC or a professional forester to determine what type of beetle they have and what the best treatment option is for their situation.
The usual recommended course of action for a Southern pine beetle infestation is to clear a buffer area around the infested trees at least as wide as the tallest trees in the infested group to prevent the beetles from spreading.
Those trees can be burned or simply left behind a safe distance from healthy forest trees. This “cut and leave” technique is often the recommended strategy for dealing with Southern pine beetle infestations, but would not be recommended for Ips beetle outbreaks, Stone said.
In the cut and leave treatment for Southern pine beetle outbreaks, infested trees are felled toward the middle of the area of the outbreak, along with a buffer of healthy trees in the direction the infestation was spreading.Ronald F. Billings, Texas A&M Forest Service, Bugwood.org
Loewenstein said the densely packed pine stands in many plantations can make beetle infestations particularly troublesome and thinning pine stands in advance can help mitigate the damage.
“The trick is to keep these stands before the fact as healthy as possible so they can fight off any additional stressors,” Loewenstein said. “If you’ve got stands that are overly dense, so individual trees within these stands have got very small live crowns, very little foliage, they’re in effect being starved and these are stressed trees.
“If we keep the stands healthy, if you add any one additional stressor, usually the problem is not huge, but right now we’ve got everything coming together at once.”
Forest products are big business in Alabama
Alabama’s forest products industry is a major economic engine in the state, and by some metrics is the largest industry in the state. Alabama is second in the country in production of pulp and paper and No. 7 in lumber production.
According to a report by Auburn University and the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, Alabama produced more than $10 billion in forest products in 2010 and more than $11 billion when you include commercial logging products.
The study found more than 23,000 direct jobs created by Alabama’s forest products industry, and indirect employment impact of more than 110,000 jobs.
While forestry is a large industry in Alabama, it is often a less visible one. According to the AFC, 87 percent of Alabama’s 23 million acres of timber land, is owned by non-industrial private landowners.
“We’re hidden,” said Keith Plott, who works at the Louisiana-Pacific lumber mill in Hanceville. “You don’t see forest industries that much because we’re way back in the woods, we’re in small towns, small communities. Folks who own land may harvest once in a generation, but every year there’s a lot of folks who do that in Alabama.”
Thinning pine stands, as Loewenstein and others recommend, is not always easy for those small-scale landowners who may go several years without having their trees cut.
Even if those owners can find crews willing to thin their pine stands, or to carve out buffer zones around infestation sites, they may not be able to find a customer willing to take their product and be forced to leave valuable timber to rot on the ground.
Plott said his company is not accepting more lumber this year and conditions are similarly tight at mills throughout the Southeast.
“In a catastrophic outbreak like this, we can’t take the overflow,” he said. “We’re taking all the wood we can take right now and we’re really the only outlet in north Alabama.
“We’re full. We’re going to stay full. So if there are additional products on the market, where are they going to go?”
Plott said those tight conditions make it harder for Alabama landowners to cope with infestations.
“Forest landowners in Alabama are generational folks,” Plott said. “They want not only to produce forest products for themselves, for their kids, they want their kids to continue to harvest that land.
“But what’s the benefit of doing that if you have an infestation that takes all your money away that you’ve planned for your kids for college or your retirement?”
What to do about it?
Like many state government agencies, the Alabama Forestry Commission has endured significant budget cuts in recent years, and its leadership is concerned about that lack of resources in trying to combat this outbreak.
Gary Cole, Alabama’s interim state forester and head of the AFC, said the department has seen its funding for flights to watch for beetle damage has been cut by a third in recent years. The department also plays an active role in fighting forest fires, and must consider that when allocating resources.
Many of the private foresters in attendance at the Montgomery meeting last week said they would contact their representatives in the legislature to ask for more funding for AFC’s beetle operations. Groups are also investigating whether more federal funding would be available if the outbreaks are as severe as some fear.
Communications with landowners will also be a big priority for AFC, USDA and private forestry groups. Representatives from the Alabama Forestry Association and ALFA both pledged to reach out to their memberships to spread the word about pine beetles.
“This is really a time where communications and quick communications is going to be important,” Albritton said. “We’ve got to get this out to the landowners, because private landowners own a majority of the land in Alabama and if we don’t get them notified as to what’s going on and what they need to do, it could get real bad by mid-summer.”
On Tuesday, March 7, leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate reintroduced the Timber Innovation Act, a bill to increase research and development of innovative forest products, which will ultimately help create or sustain markets for forest products for family woodland owners reports Matt Hestad
The bill, which was originally introduced in 2016 (See: “Wood Products, Forestry Endorse Timber Innovation Act”), primarily focuses on building the market for wood in the construction of tall buildings. The provisions of the largely bipartisan effort, in its current form, would:
Buildings have been constructed out of wood for centuries. Up until recently, however, most wood buildings did not exceed six stories and were constructed of lightweight materials. Recent advances in technology, engineering and safety have now made it possible to build taller wood buildings using newly-developed mass timber products.
Learn more about the Timber Innovation Act from the American Forest Foundation. Learn more about a proposed project in Atlantic Station by Hines Development in Georgia Forestry Magazine
What National Forestry Leaders Are Saying
Robert Glowinski,President and CEO, American Wood Council
Mass timber buildings have existed for centuries, from Japanese wood pagodas built in the 7th century that still stand to the North American heavy timber structures that have stood for the last 100 years. The United States has an opportunity to bring new, sustainable mass timber technology to our construction industry, and the Timber Innovation Act directs technical assistance and research components already in place. Building construction using wood and mass timber products directly supports jobs in areas of rural America that have yet to recover from the recession and would lessen our dependence on fossil-fuel intensive alternatives, so having the federal government encourage further development of this emerging construction technology stands to benefit and enhance both infrastructure development and putting people to work. AWC thanks all of the cosponsors for leading on the Timber Innovation Act.
Tom Martin, President and CEO, American Forest Foundation
Hardworking families and individuals own and care for more than one-third of U.S forests. These families rely on markets for their timber to stay on the land and to afford to practice the stewardship needed to deliver the clean air and water, wildlife habitat, and products Americans use every day. Thanks to leaders in the House and Senate, this legislation directs research and development that will open forest market opportunities, create jobs and rural economic growth, and support millions of families across rural America.
Cees de Jager, General Manager, Binational Softwood Lumber Council
Mass timber technology is revolutionizing and disrupting the way buildings are being built around the world. Unfortunately, the United States has been trailing other markets in this regard. The Timber Innovation Act will significantly contribute to enhancing our industry’s ability to close the knowledge gap and stimulate private sector investment that supports manufacturing and job growth in rural communities, optimizes the construction process and regains our leadership position.
Dave Tenny, President and CEO, National Alliance of Forest Owners
Our nation’s private forests provide extraordinary benefits to the natural and human environment. Building larger and taller buildings with wood as envisioned under the Timber Innovation Act combines and magnifies these benefits by putting people back to work – especially in rural communities – and supporting forest investments that provide wildlife habitat, clean water and fresh air.
Nash Elliott, President, Elliott Sawmilling, and Chairman, Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association
As the third generation operators of a family owned lumber mill, and Chairman of an association that represents many family owned businesses in rural areas, we are pleased to see the Timber Innovation Act be introduced in the 115th Congress. The legislation recognizes the potential environmental and economic benefits of increasing wood use in tall building applications. The Timber Innovation Act will help our industry continue to employ people in our rural communities for generations to come, while encouraging landowners to continue growing trees that benefit our environment.
Matt Hestad matt@gfagrow.org
JoeScan, Inc., a leading manufacturer of 3-D laser scan heads for sawmills, released its newest scan head in its JS-25 X-Series, the JS-25 X6B late 2016. The JS-25 X6B is a high-performance, six-laser scanner, specifically designed for high-density, snapshot-scanning of logs on carriage headrigs.
Each JS-25 X6B scan head can be mounted end-to-end to scan any length of log on six-inch spacing. The JS-25 X6B was designed to make it easy for optimizers and sawmills to upgrade obsolete carriage scanning systems, often reusing the existing scan frame. “Because of our dedication to sawmills, we felt it was important to give sawmills a better option for upgrading obsolete carriage scanning hardware. The JS-25 X6B is an easy upgrade that provides higher scan rates, double the scan density, and is based on the sawmill-proven reliability of the JS-25 platform,” says Joey Nelson, the president and founder of JoeScan.
The JS-25 X6B requires only 24VDC and an Ethernet connection for operation. The scanner’s Ethernet interface allows the optimizer to communicate directly with the scanner without special hardware. “The JS-25 X6B’s built-in profile processing eliminates the need for large numbers of PCs to process the image data, resulting in a simpler, more reliable system,” explains Nelson.
JoeScan’s scan heads have been made for sawmills since the company introduced its first scanner in 2002. “JoeScan is committed to the sawmill industry,” says Nelson. “We stand behind our products to make sure our scanners are a good long-term investment for sawmills. That’s why every scanner model is backed by a 5-year warranty and a 10-year support life policy to protect against obsolescence,” concludes Nelson.
Visit https://joescan.com/
Rörvik Timber plans to shut its two sawmills at Boxholm and Myresjöfönster in Sweden. The company had tried unsuccessfully for a long time to find suitable owners for the two mills in south Sweden. It has started closure negotiations with the unions and expects the decision to take effect by the summer 2017, reports TTJ.
“For several years the sawmills have recorded heavy losses and the actions taken to improve profitability have not succeeded,” the Rörvik board said.
The closure affects about 37 people in Boxholm and about 56 people in Myresjö. The board said the proliferation of sawmills in southern Sweden was clearly a problem during its process of trying to recruit new owners for the mills
Rörvik Timber used to have multiple sawmills across Sweden but has been on a divestment trail, with only the Linghem sawmill left. The mill is having a new saw line installed. Rörvik Swedfore, which produces shavings bales, is also unaffected by the changes.
Last year ATA Timber acquired two Rörvik Timber sawmills at Sandsjöfors and Tvärskog, while VIDA Group acquired Rörvik’s mill and treatment plant in Tranemo.
Rörvik Timber is engaged in the processing of wood at nine production units in southern Sweden. Its business activities are carried out in two business segments, BusSeg Timber and BusSeg Råvara (BusSeg Raw Materials).
West Fraser announced that Larry Hughes will retire as Vice President, Finance and CFO at the end of March 2017. Chris Virostek will become Vice President, Finance and CFO upon Mr. Hughes’ retirement.
Virostek is a Chartered Professional Accountant, CA and has held a number of senior financial roles at Masonite International Corporation since 2002, most recently as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development.Mr. Hughes will remain with the Company until the end of June 2017 to assist with the transition process and thereafter may provide advisory services to West Fraser’s management.
West Fraser is a diversified wood products company producing lumber, LVL, MDF, plywood, pulp, newsprint, wood chips and energy with facilities in western Canada and the southern United States.
Almost 50% of the fiber feedstock for wood pellet plants in the US South was industry and forest residues in the 1Q17, up from 33% five years ago, according to the North American Wood Fiber Review.
Wood pellet manufacturers in both the US and Canada are increasingly diversifying their feedstock to reduce fiber costs and take advantage of less utilized fiber sources, according to analysis by Wood Resources International. The key fibre furnish in both countries are sawmill by-products and forest residues, together accounting for over 80% of the total feedstock in British Columbia and almost 50% in the US South. Seattle, USA
Over the past ten years, there has been a clear shift in fiber-sourcing for pellet manufacturers in the US South from logs to residues. In 2008, when the first large pellet plant was built, practically all fiber consumed by this plant was low-quality small-diameter logs from adjacent forests. This fiber source is a high-cost fiber furnish since it needs to be chipped, hammered and dried before it can be processed to pellets, which add substantial cost to the manufacturing of pellets. Increasingly, pellet plants throughout the southern states have turned to sawmill by-products and forest residues that in the past have been left at the harvesting sites.
In British Columbia, pellet companies have moved from entirely relying on inexpensive sawdust from the local sawmills for its fiber furnish to increasingly supplementing its dominant fiber source with forest residues in the form of treetops and branches left after harvest operations.
In the US South, there has been an increase in the usage of residuals at the expense of roundwood. In the 1Q/17, pellet plants in BC consumed just over 82 % sawmill residues, while forest residues accounted for about 17%. With the expected reduction in lumber production in the province in the coming years, pellet plants will increasingly have to rely on forest residues and low-cost logs for their furnish since the available supply of sawmill by-products will diminish.
In the US South, the fiber sourcing trend is the opposite of British Columbia with expected increases in the usage of sawmill residues, as the lumber production is likely to expand in the future. From the 1Q/13 to the 1Q/17, the usage of industry and forest residues increased from 33% to 47% of the total fiber furnish for the pellet industry, according to the NAWFR. This upward trend is expected to continue, especially in regards to the usage of sawdust and microchips (chips manufactured from treetops, tree branches and small – diameter trees from forest thinnings.
While BC forestry companies face a long-term decline in the annual allowable cut in the Interior, thanks to the mountain pine beetle infestation, BC companies on the coast have been exporting raw logs, mostly to China, in record volumes in recent years.
According to a recent Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) report, one in three trees cut on the BC coast was exported in 2016 – 6.6 million cubic metres – which is slightly short of the 6.9-million-cubic-metre record in 2013. Log exports between 2013 and 2016 generated $3 billion.
So, should the BC government ban or severely restrict raw log exports?
While log exports are not new, their volume and value have increased in recent years, thanks to demand from China, and raw log exports now promise to become an election issue.
The CCPA is recommending a ban on log exports from old-growth forests and higher export taxes on second-growth log exports.
If the NDP has a firm election plank position on the issue, party leader John Horgan won’t say what it is.
“We’re not going to lay it all out at this moment,” he told Business in Vancouver.
Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver said he doesn’t support a ban on log exports. He would rather see incentives given to the pulp and paper industry, which could use some of the low-value logs currently being exported
Much of the timber that is exported in raw log form is hemlock, which is a lower- value wood.
“I don’t think banning is the way to go,” Weaver said. “But differential taxes between logs that export, versus logs that stay, is one way. Appurtenances is another way.”
Under appurtenance rules, which the Liberal government scrapped, trees cut in a given region had to be used in that region to feed local mills
Under appurtenance rules, which the Liberal government scrapped, trees cut in a given region had to be used in that region to feed local mills.
Once those rules were scrapped, logs could be sold to anyone anywhere. Buyers in China are willing to pay higher prices for hemlock logs than are local mills, which can block export sales, if they want the logs.
If coastal sawmill owners aren’t blocking export sales, it’s because they can’t compete, Horgan said. Forestry companies can get much better prices for their logs in China.
“The large tenure holders are basically preventing them from getting access to these logs by driving up the prices and selling them offshore,” Horgan said
While in the past, most log exports came from private land owned by TimberWest and Island Timberlands from their vast private holdings on Vancouver Island, more export logs are coming off of publicly owned forests.
“It is public lands that [are] supplying the bulk, and that is increasing,” said Ben Parfitt, who authored the CCPA report.
BC Forestry Minister Steve Thomson insists that only 7% of the trees cut on coastal Crown land are exported.
Asked if an NDP government would bring back appurtenance rules, Horgan hesitated, saying that any regulatory changes need to be considered within the context of ongoing softwood lumber negotiations with the United States.
Increased restrictions on log exports could be viewed as protectionism by American lumber producers and give them even more ammunition in their fight against a Canadian system that they already consider to be unfairly subsidized through Canada’s Crown tenure system.
An estimated 25 sawmills have closed since 2006, mostly in the Interior. The mountain pine beetle wiped out half of the Interior’s timber supply, and it will take half a century for replanted trees to mature.
“If you believe – and the writing clearly is on the wall – that there are going to be significant declines in available log supply in the Interior of the province, then the future of the forest industry – at least the immediate future – is going to be much more dependent on coastal forest industry activity,” Parfitt said.
An average sawmill produces 300,000 cubic metres of lumber annually, so the amount of logs exported in 2016 would have been enough to supply at least a dozen sawmills for a year.
“If we continue down the road that we’re on, we run a very real risk of fewer and fewer sawmills, and more and more log exports, which means more forgone job opportunities,” Parfitt said.
But forest-sector organizations like the Coast Forest Products Association (CFPA) and Truck Loggers Association (TLA) argue the reverse is true. Log exports help to subsidize logging operations, they say, which benefits local mills.
“Log exports are a very important part of the economics of the coast, ensuring that we can harvest the entire profile of the allowable cut, and that means getting into some of the harder, more economically challenged areas into the lower-quality stands,” said CFPA president Rick Jeffery.
“Log exports help you do that, and they help you do that in a manner that puts logs in front of domestic mills.”
If new mills aren’t being built on the coast, it’s not because there is a shortage of coastal timber, says TLA executive director David Elstone.
“There is a surplus; you have the ability to access that surplus,” he said. “It’s not log exports that are restricting that investment.”
As for the Interior’s shrinking timber supply, Weaver thinks there are opportunities to free up more fibre in northeastern BC, where the annual allowable cut is underused.
“There are examples,” he said, “like up in the Fort Nelson area, where we have large timber lots that aren’t being harvested and there are local mills that would like to harvest it.”
Source: Business in Vancouver
On 21 February, the 12,000th PONSSE forest machine was handed over to the customer at Ponsse’s Vieremä factory. The PONSSE ScorpionKing was received by a French family company called Sarl NC Bois from Trémilly.
“We have co-operated with NC Bois for a decade and I am very glad to be celebrating the 12,000th forest machine with our French customer. Last year was our best year of operations in France of all times, and our market share in France has developed positively. Furthermore, this milestone is for us as a Finnish company a great beginning to Finland’s centennial year,” says Jarmo Vidgrén, Ponsse’s sales and marketing director.
At the moment, a new PONSSE service centre, which will be opened in the spring, is being built in Labouheyre in southern France. The service centre is a part of this year’s large investments in the service network and development and expansion of the production facilities. This year, new service centres will be completed in Ponsse’s subsidiaries in the UK, Uruguay and France.
In France, Ponsse has three of their own service centres and some authorised service partners. The subsidiary Ponssé S.A.S. has been responsible for Ponsse’s operations in France since 1996.
Family business as an asset
Sarl NC Bois, that today received the 12,000th PONSSE forest machine in Vieremä is a harvesting company established by two brothers, Nicolas and Mickael Cuny.
The company started operating in 2007 with a used PONSSE HS16 harvester. In 2008, the brothers’ father Claude Cuny joined in the business, and the following year, even a third brother, Billy Cuny, joined in. On an annual basis, Sarl NC Bois harvests and buys 50,000 m³ of wood with net sales of over EUR 2 million.
“Being a family company is an important asset for us,” Nicolas and Michael Cuny say.
The company can be described as a pioneer in machine acquisitions in France. In 2009, the company acquired the first eight-wheel Ergo in France, and the PONSSE ScorpionKing harvester acquired in 2014 was one of the first in France. At the
moment, NC Bois is logging with ten PONSSE machines.
In total, Ponsse has manufactured about 450 PONSSE Scorpion harvesters that came into production in 2014, and has delivered machines into 20 countries.
Komatsu Forest has introduced the Komatsu Traction Aid Winch, a high-quality capstan winch based on more than ten years’ experience of working with winches in the alpine regions of Europe. In 2017 Komatsu Forest will begin delivering the Komatsu Traction Aid Winch for the Komatsu 875 forwarder and the Komatsu 911/230H and Komatsu 931 harvesters.
There is an ever-increasing need for winch accessories for forwarders and harvesters. Competition for land use, such as for food and bioenergy cultivation, is growing throughout the world. As a result, forestry often expands into areas where such uses do not compete for land, as in steep terrain for example. In order to harvest and forward timber in such extreme conditions, there is increased demand for specially adapted technology, including winches.
Komatsu Forest has extensive experience of working with winches in the alpine regions of Germany and Austria, where the technology has been refined in cooperation with customers for over ten years. Using that knowledge, Komatsu Forest has now created the Komatsu Traction Aid Winch, a high-quality winch solution that will be available as an option when the machine models listed above are assembled.
The system is based on the tried and tested capstan principle where the winch has a separate drum for rope storage, while the motor, providing traction, is installed on the capstan unit. The rope is wound nine times around the capstan drive, which gives great friction force and thus an efficient winch.
The capstan system provides even traction because the same amount of rope is always wound around the capstan unit. This is an advantage compared to a regular drum winch where the rope is wound around a drum that also houses the motor, a construction that provides uneven traction because the torque varies depending on how much rope remains on the drum. The design also offers better control over how the rope is wound onto the drum compared to a drum winch. This is because the entire tractive force acts on the capstan unit while only indirectly acting on the rope on the storage drum. As a result, the operator can rest assured that the rope will wind onto the drum without incident. The reduced traction force on the storage drum also means less stress and wear on the rope, thereby extending its service life.
The Komatsu Traction Aid Winch has a compact design that provides the forwarder/harvester with excellent ground clearance, manoeuvrability and visibility from the cab. The harvester winch is fitted with a hydraulic tilt, making it easy to tilt the winch downwards to open the hood or adjust the rope angle. The winch also has quick couplings for easy removal during servicing or when driving on flat terrain where it is not needed. The forwarder winch is well integrated with the rear frame. The 130F crane model can be equipped with an integrated crane tilt option, which delivers higher net slewing force when used in steep terrain.
The winch has a rope feeder unit that ensures that the rope is always tensioned inside the winch, which increases reliability and prevents problems with the rope. Winch control is integrated with the machine’s control system MaxiXplorer. This enables the rope feed rate to be automatically adjusted so that it adapts to the machine’s driving speed without the operator needing to intervene. The high-quality rope has a diameter of 14 mm and a length of 325 m for harvesters and 425 m for forwarders.
The Komatsu Traction Aid Winch is equipped with a remote control that enables a lone operator to control the winch from outside the machine, as well as to feed and anchor the rope. The winch also has different smart modes to optimise operating efficiency. The Komatsu Traction Aid Winch is quite simply a well-designed solution that offers traction aid and additional peace of mind in steep terrain and when faced with challenging ground conditions.