Harvest of Short-Rotation Woody Crops in Plantations with a Biobaler

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"> <span lang="EN-CA">The biobaler is an alternative to the modified self-propelled forage harvester to cut and collect short rotation woody crops (SRWC). It is less capital intensive and more versatile, being able to harvest woody crops on plantations, on abandoned farmland, on brush land or within forest understory. The biobaler was evaluated specifically on five different plantations over 19 experimental units (546 bales harvested with an average mass of 427 kg and 49% moisture content). Average bale density was 266 kg wet mass (WM)/m</span>^{<span lang="EN-CA">3</span>}<span lang="EN-CA"> or 139 kg dry mass (DM)/m</span>^{<span lang="EN-CA">3</span>}<span lang="EN-CA">. Average harvest capacity was 35 bales/h (7.7 t dry matter/h), and ranged from 23 to 48 bales/h. Harvest in plantations with a 149 kW tractor cost on average CAN $175/h, $5/bale and $22.84/t DM. Non recovered biomass (field loss) averaged 11% at random locations in the field and 8% at the point of bale ejection as a result of chip abrasion. While the biobaler remains a versatile harvester for SRWC, its preferred utilization will be in environments of diverse woody crops with final application as a rough mulch or for combustion in furnaces requiring minimal processing or size reduction.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p

Preliminary trials of the BioBaler working in Brazilian eucalypt plantations

“…The productivity values recorded in this study are well within the 2-19 t h −1 range spanned by previous tests, which were conducted with the BioBaler under a wide variety of different conditions. Concerning trends, this study shows that productivity increases with field yield, as observed previously by other authors who have tested the BioBaler (Savoie et al 2009(Savoie et al , 2013. In fact, the direct relationship between field stocking and productivity seems to be a general rule for swathe harvesting, and especially for the harvesting of short-rotation energy plantations with single-pass continuous harvesting machinery .…”

“…Given that most of these machines have a definite working speed, it stands to reason that the higher the field stocking, the higher the productivity -at least if field stocking does not attain the maximum capacity of the machine. In this case, one may assume that the 15 t ha −1 stocking recorded on Block 1 is well within the maximum capacity of the BioBaler, which is further supported by the fact that other studies with the same machine report successful harvesting for much higher field stocking values, up to 50 t ha −1 (Savoie et al 2013). This is especially important, if one considers that Brazilian energy plantations may attain stocking in excess of 100 t ha −1 (Guerra et al 2014).…”

“…For this reason, the results of this study should be generalised with caution, and must be taken as indicative rather than conclusive. However, studies have been conducted with the same machine on similarly small production batches, which have been published in reputable scientific journals after strict peer-reviewing (Canto et al 2011;Savoie et al 2013). Furthermore, this is the only study available to date regarding the use of the BioBaler in Eucalyptus energy plantations, which makes it rather valuable, especially if one considers the large potential of these plantations and the keen interest in developing new harvesting techniques that can cope with the very high moisture content of eucalypt wood.…”

“…Built by Anderson Manufacturing and sold under the commercial name BioBaler, this machine offers the main advantage of cutting the stems and packing them into regular and dense units, which are easy to handle and store. The machine has been successfully tested under different work conditions, including those offered by European-style short-rotation forestry plantations, established with willows (Savoie et al 2013). However, Brazilian eucalypt plantations may offer different and challenging conditions to the new machine, especially for what concerns stem size, moisture content and stringy bark -all generally higher than those found in willows.…”

Harvesting eucalyptus energy plantations in Brazil with a modified New Holland forage harvester

“…Of course, modified foragers are not the only option. SRC can be harvested with a large array of different machines, including cutand-collect [25] and/or pull-type units [26,27]. However, recent studies demonstrate that modified foragers represent the most effective option by far [19,28].…”