It looks a bit like a silage-harvesting system, and the RT400 Fecon tracked mulcher is one powerful chewing machine.
The European, 400-horsepower bio-harvester was recently put through its paces by staff from the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre’s Edmonton office, who wanted to see its purpose-built, front-mounted chipper in action.
“When using a mulching head, you are smashing and pulverizing the wood and leaving it on the ground,” says Tim Keddy, the centre’s wood fibre development specialist.
“Presently there is no way to collect it. With this head, it grinds it up into chips and blows it like a snow blower into a hopper that trails in behind.”
Read Also
New crop insurer policy enables easier startup for faba beans
Agriculture Financial Services Corporation updated its normals for faba beans, which may open the door for more Canadian producers to feel comfortable growing the pulse crop in the future.
As part of the demonstration, Keddy rented a high-dump trailer commonly used in the agriculture industry to collect the biomass spewing out of the chipper (manufactured by German company AWRI and brought to North America by Fecon Inc. for the demonstration).
The powerful machine can grind up trees as big as 13 centimetres in diameter, and during the demonstration, gobbled up 0.6 hectares per hour, shaving off stumps at nearly ground level.
Densely planted willow and hybrid poplars can be harvested every three years, with up to seven coppice cycles per root system.
Because of its power, the machine could also be used on industrial sites, such as under hydro lines, and the mulched wood used for biomass instead of being left on the ground.
“In the past, the mulching and the harvesting have occurred but there were very few ways of collecting the biomass that was being harvested,” says Keddy. “Usually it was just left on site and now this is a way of collecting it and using it for other purposes.”
It could also be used to reduce a fire hazard near a community by removing potential fuel sources for a forest fire.
When combined with a soil-stabilizing head, the machine can dig up to 18 inches into the ground, removing stumps and roots so a site can be disced and seeded the following spring. That allows the technology to be used to renovate pasture and range lands that have become overgrown with large and extensive brush infestation.
The centre plans to conduct further tests to see how it handles natural stands of small-diameter willow, black spruce and tamarack, as well as a mature forest featuring aspen with a variety of understorey vegetation for the Fire Smart program.
