The significance of high-quality training is increasing globally. Ponsse is responding to the need for the development of training by modernising its simulator product range. We are now presenting the new PONSSE Full simulator. It is a full-range training system, and its realistic forest environment and detailed graphics offer an excellent platform for professional training.

In addition to the new PONSSE Full simulator, the product range includes the PONSSE Basic and Compact simulators, which offer a modern training environment for the use of harvesters, forwarders and PONSSE Opti information systems. A simulator is a cost-effective and safe environment for training new operators, forest machine professionals and service mechanics.

A simulator also acts as an excellent tool in the research and development of work, because individual situations can be repeated over and over again, and different harvesting methods can be compared, for example.

We invite you to hear more about our new simulators and Ponsse’s other training services at a free webinar on 27 January 2021 at 9 am in Finnish, and at 3 pm in English (Time zone: EET, Finnish time).

Register here: www.ponsse.com/ponsse-studio-presents

Nisula Forest Oy and Trisa d.o.o have signed a dealership agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Trisa d.o.o will sell Nisula Forest products, parts and offer services in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina for the products manufactured by Nisula Forest.

“We are very excited about our cooperation with Trisa. With their experience in the forestry sector and their high competence, our new dealer Trisa d.o.o will guarantee the satisfaction of our customers in their market area. Welcome to the Nisula Forest family!”, says Nisula Forest Sales Director Timo Savornin.

Nisula Forest Oy
Timo Savornin
Sales Director
+358 50 5715804
timo.savornin@nisulaforest.com

John Deere is launching redesigned jib boom options equipped with a hidden hose extension for forwarders with CF5, CF7 and CF7S booms. The redesigned jib booms bring a clear improvement in usability, durability and serviceability. The new XI-designated hidden hose extensions will be an available option for the 910G, 1010G, 1110G, 1210G and 1510G forwarders during spring 2021.

Improved durability, usability and productivity
The new jig boom is more robust, the extension is stronger, and the routing of the hoses has been redesigned, taking better account of both the durability and changeability of the hoses as well as the usability of the boom. The redesigned routing of the hoses between the lifting and jib boom and the inside the extension packs protect the hoses from damage.

The improved geometry and the more balanced ratio between the lifting and jib boom makes the boom’s trajectories and operation smoother, thereby improving productivity. With the new XI hidden hose extensions, the reach of the boom is 9.8 m.

90% of the forwarders delivered are equipped with IBC. The machines equipped with IBC include an optional work light located under the jib boom for better visibility to the boom tip in the dark.

Servicing made easy
The improved hose routing inside the boom increases the durability of the hoses and makes hose replacement easier. The slide bearing at the rear end of the extension can now be lubricated without removing the covers. Also the extension chain can be adjusted without disassembling parts and removing the covers. The adjustable boom support is also new and makes for easier switching to the transport position.

In addition to the hidden hose extensions, a stronger Indexator GV12-2S link is also available. The base plate of the stronger link is now made from steel rather than cast iron.

Further information:
Elina Suuriniemi
Communications Specialist
John Deere Forestry Oy
Tel. +358 400 466476
SuuriniemiElina@JohnDeere.com

John Deere Forestry Oy is domiciled in Tampere, which is the site of forest machine product development and the European marketing centre. The company employs about 700 people in Finland. John Deere forest machines are produced in Joensuu.

More information is available at www.JohnDeere.co.uk.

Deere & Company (www.JohnDeere.com) is a world leader in providing advanced products, technology and services for customers whose work is revolutionizing agriculture and construction – those who cultivate, harvest, transform, enrich and build upon the land to meet the world’s increasing need for food, fuel, shelter and infrastructure.

PotlatchDeltic has selected BID Group’s OPER8 ™ as its Industrial IoT (‘IIoT’) Solutions Platform.  OPER8 ™ is the only purpose-built IIoT solution for the Wood Processing Industry. Wrapping around and extending through new and legacy equipment, technologies, and systems, OPER8™ was designed for rapid implementation to provide a “single pane of glass” view into all aspects of operational performance. OPER8™ leverages the 35+ years of BID’s deep industry-specific knowledge of equipment, technologies, and business processes.

Deploying OPER8™ across all Sawmill and Plywood facilities is a key element in the digital transformation journey ensuring PotlatchDeltic continues to defend and expand its competitive advantage in the marketplace.

The OPER8™ implementation will be a sequential roll-out beginning with Bemidji, Minnesota in early 2021. This will include a connection to BID-supplied sensors to drive predictive analytics that yield unsurpassed insights and reliability to optimize their asset life cycle management and overall financial performance.

PotlatchDeltic is a leading Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that owns 1.8 million acres of timberlands in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota and Mississippi.

Debarking – Hekotek continues projects in France, supplying equipment for wood pellets manufacture. One of the recent projects was successfully completed in the summer of 2020, and the next one is planned to be completed next summer.

Hekotek completed its first project in France in 2013 – for the Biosylva SAS plant (Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire) a line for low-quality log debarking and feeding them into a chipper was delivered and successfully launched.

Biosylva has been successfully operating to the present day, and in 2021, in the second half of summer in the Auvergne region, the company plans to launch the next pellet plant, where Hekotek is to supply a similar line for debarking of raw materials and feeding them for chipping.

Hekotek is a mechanical engineering company founded in 1992; its main operations include design and production of woodworking technologies and facilities.

Photo: Hekotek’s debarking and chipping line

SCA’s NorrPlant delivered 103.5 million seedlings in 2020, which is over a million more than before.

“We delivered 103.5 million seedlings, which is over a million more than our previous record. It’s great to have succeeded so well, especially considering the coronavirus pandemic. In the spring, we were concerned that we would be forced to discard seedlings due to the coronavirus, but it turns out we didn’t have to. Instead, we had a record season that will be hard to beat for a while,” says Peter Engblom, business developer at NorrPlant.

Of the 103.5 million seedlings that were delivered, 63 million were pine seedlings, 33 million spruce seedlings, 7 million contorta pine seedlings and nearly 600,000 larch seedlings.

The majority of seedlings were delivered to external customers, from Karlstad in the south to Kiruna in the north. NorrPlant also exported some seedlings to Sweden’s neighboring countries.

From this year forward, SCA is also offering frozen seedlings delivered in boxes. This new delivery method was well-received.

“The frozen seedlings sold out early,” says Peter. “Some of the frozen seedlings were even delivered to our forests in Latvia. That’s where we’re planting our largest seedlings, SuperPot, because they’re ideal for land with substantial vegetation stress, when agricultural land is to be replanted or as part of auxiliary planting needed to support rejuvenation.”

Photo: SCA

At the end of 2020, USNR signed a contract with Tschopp Holzindustrie AG in Buttisholz, Switzerland, for a complete new saw line. The sawline will be a fully equipped premium production line that is custom designed to cut a maximum volume of thin boards from each log. The mill, one of Switzerland’s largest, provides the raw material for Tschopp’s production of formwork panels for the construction industry.

The log line will comprise two Logmaster HPS quad bandmills (8 bandmills in total). Designed for accurate cutting at speeds up to 180 m/min (590 ft/min), Logmaster HPS is the most advanced bandmill in USNR’s program for throughput and recovery. The line will also be equipped with USNR’s optimization and controls, and designed with flexibility and capability to accommodate complex saw patterns.

To handle the large volume of sideboards, USNR will also deliver two Catech XT edger lines that operate in the range of over 70 boards/min. These lines will be equipped with the latest optimization technology, for the highest recovery and throughput the market has to offer.

“Winning this order means that USNR can look back on 2020 as one of the best years ever in terms of sales for our European operations, despite the ongoing pandemic. This is validation of our very strong position in this region,” remarked Johan Johansson, CEO USNR AB. Johansson continues: “Located in the heart of Europe, this is a very strategic project for USNR. It will afford the wood processors in that region the opportunity to see first-hand the capabilities of USNR’s technology.”

The project is valued in the range of 13 million euro ($16 million), and all machinery will be manufactured and delivered from the USNR facility in Söderhamn, Sweden.

For further information, please contact:
Johan Johansson CEO, USNR AB johan.johansson@usnr.com +46 270 747 90
Christian Winlöf Sales & Marketing Manager, USNR AB Christian.winlof@usnr.com +46 270 746 72

The Forestry Commission is inviting prospective applicants to quote for a new scheme which will help UK seed suppliers and tree growers predict supply and demand.

The government manifesto committed to increase tree planting across the UK to 30,000ha of new woodlands each year by 2025. The £640 million Nature for Climate Fund announced in the March 2020 budget will support these ambitions for tree planting in England.

The programme of work being developed by the Forestry Commission and Defra to support delivery of the Nature for Climate Fund has identified that to meet these targets there needs to be a significant increase in the UK production of tree planting material, to decrease the reliance on imports. This anticipated new woodland creation, alongside sustainable forest management of existing woodlands requiring restocking of harvested sites, will benefit from more accurate matching of supply and demand for seeds and trees.

The Forestry Commission want to introduce a Nursery Notification Scheme (NNS), which will inform UK seed suppliers and tree growers of forthcoming woodland creation and restocking projects and allow them to prepare tree stock accordingly.

The aim of the work being tendered is to provide the Forestry Commission with costed options for this Nursery Notification System, with a focus on forestry trees, to be developed from 2021 and that meets the needs of:

 ·        trade associations representing major tree nurseries; smaller tree nurseries; tree seed suppliers, in order to provide sufficient visibility and certainty so that they can grow the types and quantities of trees that will be required;

·        major forestry contractors involved in woodland creation; the Forestry Commission and Defra, in order to ensure sufficient supply of the types and quantities of trees required to supply woodland creation and tree planting projects coming forward.

The invitation to quote process will open on Monday 11 January 2021, and an information webinar held for prospective applicants on Friday 15^th January.

For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nursery-notification-scheme-invitation-to-quote

About us
The Forestry Commission is the government department responsible for protecting, expanding and promoting the sustainable management of woodlands.
More information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/forestry-commission/about

A milestone in forest machine technology, John Deere’s Intelligent Boom Control (IBC), is now available for all John Deere WCTL forest machines. IBC was launched for forwarders in 2013. It was introduced for harvesters in 2017, initially for the 1270G and 1170G models. IBC was available for the biggest harvester model, the 1470G, earlier in 2020, and it will now be available also for the smaller 1070G harvester.

Precise and smooth work with IBC
A boom equipped with intelligent boom control is fast, easy to use and precise. IBC is a unique boom control system developed by John Deere. The sensors in the intelligent control system read the harvester head’s position, and the algorithms adjust the boom’s trajectories in one easily controlled motion. IBC also functions as a platform on which we can introduce new functionalities that facilitate work.

In harvester operations, IBC is designed to suit the machine’s work cycle. The trajectory and function of the boom automatically adjust as the boom is taken to a tree and when the tree is in the grapple. The operator doesn’t have to activate the different sections of the boom individually. IBC ensures precise operation and efficient work practices. The boom’s electronic end dampening makes the work process pleasant and smooth, and reduces stress on the entire boom. IBC improves work ergonomics and guides the operator in the correct use of the boom, which is directly reflected in the increased productivity of the machine and in the everyday working capacity of the operators.

1070G, IBC and the new H212 harvester head
The agile 1070G equipped with the new, narrow and light H212 harvester head is an ideal combination for first thinnings. The advantages of IBC in thinning work are unbeatable. Precise and controlled movements and grabbing trees, a frequent matter in thinning work, are emphasized in first thinnings and in bundlehandling.

The dimensions of the H212 harvester head bring agility to moving about even in dense thinnings.

Delimbing has been optimized especially for smaller trees, enabling a very high-quality delimbing result.

Thanks to the narrow frame of the H212 harvester head, visibility to the stem is excellent. The location and the high-speed cutting of the saw increases productivity and minimizes cutting damage. And it has the power and feeding speed to handle bigger trees if needed. The H212 harvester head is available for John Deere 1070G and 1170G harvesters.

New durable windows compliant with ISO 21876 Saw Chain Shot Testing standards for forest Machines
In September 2020, ISO 21876 was published. The new standard defines the requirements for the windows of harvesters, which are at risk of being hit with a broken saw chain or its parts.

Since March 2020, all John Deere forest machines have been equipped with windows fulfilling the requirements of this new standard.

The new RENCRAFT® Super Hard Coat (ECE 43R LEVEL L) polycarbonate windows are more durable.

The scratch resistance of the windows and their ability to withstand chemicals and cleaning solutions is significantly improved.

The front window of the rotating cabin and the rear window of the forwarder’s fixed cabin are now almost 50% thicker than before. Also the front window of the fixed cabin is thicker than before. The thicker material provides better sound insulation, making the cabin an even quieter working environment. The windows can also be retrofitted to all the latest models that have a rotating and levelling cabin or a fixed cabin.

Further information:
Elina Suuriniemi
Communications Specialist
John Deere Forestry Oy
tel. +358 400 466 476
SuuriniemiElina@JohnDeere.com

Weston Forest, a leading distributor and remanufacturer of softwood and hardwood lumber and specialty panel products, has announced it has been acquired by the Watermill Group, a strategy-driven private investment firm.

“This is a historic event for everyone at Weston Forest,” said Steve Rhone, President, Weston Forest.
“Our partnership with the Watermill Group will give us the strategic expertise and financial resources we need to help us enter the next phase of our growth. Watermill’s culture and values are an excellent fit with ours, and this strategic move will allow us to continue to offer a diverse range of products and services to our customers and suppliers, while providing more opportunity to our employees.” The Weston Forest executive team remains heavily invested in the company.

Weston Forest operates several facilities across eastern Canada and the United States, providing products and services that are essential to commercial and residential construction as well as the production and shipment of industrial goods. Customers and suppliers of Weston benefit from the company’s diverse business model and concentration on niche markets, which has helped insulate Weston Forest from the usual impacts of commodity cycles and economic swings. The company’s reliability and collaborative and committed corporate culture fuels its brand promise: “YOU’LL LOVE DOING BUSINESS WITH US”.

“Weston Forest is an exceptional organization that has shown significant and sustained growth over the last decade,” said Julia Karol, President and COO, Watermill Group. “We are looking forward to partnering with Weston’s talented and deeply knowledgeable management team, providing the tools and financial support needed to accelerate growth.”

For the investment, Watermill has included as a co-invest partner Walter Capital Partners, a private investment firm based in Canada. Debt for this transaction was provided by National Bank of Canada and TD Bank. Richter Advisory Group Inc. provided financial due diligence advice to Watermill and Proskauer provided legal counsel. Weston Forest received legal counsel from Torkin Manes and advisory services from Deloitte and EY.

About Weston Forest

Weston Forest is a leading distributor and remanufacturer of softwood and hardwood lumber and specialty panel products, serving North America’s industrial and construction sectors. A trusted partner since 1953, Weston’s remanufacturing and inventory management services help customers create specified crating, packaging, pallets and boxes, and other niche wood products that are essential for the production or shipment of Industrial goods. The company’s logistics and just-in-time fulfilment capabilities support truss manufacturing, framing, lagging and shoring, concrete forming and other processes that are crucial to commercial and residential construction and large infrastructure projects.

Weston Forest is honoured to be recognized repeatedly by Deloitte as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, by the Canadian Business Growth 500 as one of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies, by Waterstone Human Capital as one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures, and by Excellence Canada as a recipient of its Canadian Business Excellence Award for Private Businesses. In addition, Weston Forest received the Mississauga Board of Trade 2019 Large Business of the Year Award and has been featured on the Globe & Mail’s inaugural list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies

Mississauga, ON and Lexington, MA – January 4, 2021 –

Photo: Steve Rhone, President, Weston Forest.