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Abstract
The soil disturbance and productivity of wide-tired and narrow-tired skidders was compared on aspen harvests in east-central Minnesota. Split plot comparisons showed that wide-tired skidders (73-44.00x32 tires) had cycle times 16 percent greater than the narrow-tired skidder (30.5Lx32 tires) for an average travel distance of 160 meters. The increased total cycle time for the wide-tired skidder came partly from significantly greater load building time. Since adequate traction and flotation were available throughout the harvest trials, wide-tired skidders had no advantage in any of the cycle elements. No significant difference was detected for production (tonnes/productive machine hour) partly due to small sample size. The mineral soil upland sites used in the study did not present any difficulty in operability for either skidder. The area in shallow depressions and ruts ranged from 2 to 23 percent (mean = 12 percent) with no significant difference due to tire size. During the study the application of the wide-tired skidder was affected by 1) poor truck access over haul roads and landings which restricted activity when soils were wet and 2) other production bottlenecks such as trucking limitations and volume quotas which limited operation productivity.
Parent Publication
Citation
Smidt, Mathew F.; Blinn, Charles R. 1999. Soil disturbance and productivity from wide-tired skidder trails in Minnesota aspen harvests. In: Stringer, Jeffrey W.; Loftis, David L., eds. 1999. Proceedings, 12th central hardwood forest conference; 1999 February 28-March 1-2; Lexington, KY. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-24. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 293 p.
