From the front lines and back rooms: news highlights
 Welcome to the
third issue of The Log, the newsletter of the CRC for
Forestry’s Program Three: Harvesting and Operations. We have
been very busy since the last newsletter with more field work
ramping up across Australia, the first three industry
bulletins being published and three more being prepared, a
very positive CRC for Forestry Annual Science Meeting, and another
packed Program Coordinating Committee meeting. [Read more
...]
Profile: Martin Strandgard
 Meet Martin
Strandgard—a forester with 26 years experience working in
government forestry businesses and at the University of Melbourne.
He is one of the original members of the Program Three team,
involved since the program began in 2005. His research work now
focuses on the use of technology to improve productivity in
mechanised harvesting systems. [Read more
...]
New Program Coordinating Committee members
 Aidan
Flanagan (pictured, left) replaces Sean Riley as Program
Coordinating Committee (PCC) representatives for the Forest and
Forest Industries Council (FFIC) in Tasmania. Ross Runnalls is the
PCC rep for our new industry partner, VicForests. Andrew Widdowson
is the PCC rep for ITC Limited. Andrew Wiggill, previously with
ITC, is now with Great Southern and assists Justine Edwards with
PCC responsibilities for that company. [Read more
...]
Snippets from Andrew Wye's trip to South America
 Last year,
Forest Enterprises Australia (FEA) sent Andrew Wye and Darryn Crook
to look at harvesting and processing systems in Uruguay and Brazil.
A highlight of the trip included seeing eucalypts with growth rates
exceeding 35 cubic metres in mean annual increment
(MAI)—something that Australian foresters very rarely see.
Andrew Wye reports here on some of his observations on the
harvesting and processing systems he encountered. [Read more
...]
'Focus on Forest Engineering': Mauricio Acuna attends conference in
Uruguay
 In November 2008, Mauricio Acuna attended the
international conference ‘Focus on Forest Engineering’
in Uruguay. The objective of this conference was to contribute to
the development of the forestry sector by promoting training and
benchmarking and bringing together well-known professionals and
researchers from internationally known companies and research
programs. [Read more
...]
The good, the bad and the ugly: Loren Kellogg reflects on a year
with Program Three
 In this
article, Loren Kellogg reflects on his year with the program,
particularly noting the program's strong connection with industry
and other end users of the research; its healthy range of research
projects, cutting-edge trials, and software development; its
relevance in contributing to reducing operating costs and
increasing product values; and its impressive line-up of
collaboration with other leading international harvesting research
organisations and visitors. [Read more
...]
Timbercorp trial uses shift-level data to explore productivity and
cost of harvesting systems
 A comprehensive set of trials investigating the
main factors affecting productivity and costs of mechanised
harvesting systems for varied stand conditions has begun in Western
Australia. The trials will provide quantitative data to assist
operations managers to match harvesting systems to plantations in
WA. The first of these trials was based on the Timbercorp
harvesting system. [Read more
...]
Study recommends strategies to improve estimates of bark thickness
in radiata pine
 A recent study of radiata pine bark thickness has
identified three factors that determine errors in harvesters'
estimations of bark thickness. Bark thickness is used to estimate
underbark diameter which is critical to log volume and value
calculations and optimisation. Errors in bark thickness
estimation can reduce harvesting returns through rejection of
undersize logs and poor optimisation. This article gives a brief
overview of several approaches that better predict bark thickness,
and more detail will be reported in an upcoming industry bulletin.
[Read more
...]
Program Three now finalising machine evaluation framework
 We
are moving into the finalisation and implementation phase of the
machine evaluation framework that Mauricio Acuna and visiting
researcher Ernie Heidersdorf have proposed for Australia, and
ultimately, the Southern Hemisphere, to define standard performance
measures for better control and understanding of forest operations,
permit the exchange of information on a common basis and allow for
the pooling of data from different sources. [Read more
...]
Course offers opportunity for professional development in forest
operations
 Members of the Program Three team are playing
an important role in presenting, once again, the Forest
Operations Course of the Master in Forest Ecosystem Science
offered by the University of Melbourne. This
course—offered from 22 June to 3 July 2009—is a
perfect opportunity for industry partners to provide some
professional development for their staff that will add value
to their business. And it won’t take staff away from the
front line for any more than two weeks! [Read more
...]
Three research bulletins available now and three more to come
 Program
Three is committed to rapidly distributing research results to our
industry partners and to do this we have designed a new
communications medium we call the ‘research bulletin'. Each
bulletin provides a concise summary of a research trial,
highlighting the major findings in a format that we believe busy
operational managers will appreciate and hopefully read. We have
distributed three bulletins so far, and three more are being
prepared. [Read more
...]
Have your say
We welcome your comments on issues in The
Log and please contact Program Manager Mark Brown if
you would like to contribute to future editions. Please always feel
free to contact any of the Harvesting and Operations program team
members—Mark Brown,
Tom
Fisk, Martin
Strandgard, Mauricio Acuna,
John
Wiedemann—if you have any questions about current or
future activities, or would like greater detail on anything
reported in this newsletter.
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