S.7 Ep.5: The View from the Cab

Good silviculture isn’t just about knowing the science—it’s about building strong partnerships. One of the most critical relationships in forestry is the collaboration between foresters and loggers. Successfully marking a timber sale, for instance, means understanding not only the forest but also the equipment and capabilities that will bring the prescription to life. In this episode of SilviCast, we dive into the world of modern logging equipment used across eastern North America. Joined by Carl Lockhart, Forestry Products Consultant with John Deere, we explore how today’s machines shape on-the-ground decisions—and why aligning knowledge between planning and execution is key to getting silviculture right.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to Silvicast, the podcast about all things silviculture. I'm Greg Edge, retired silviculturist with the Wisconsin DNR Division of Forestry.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

And I'm Brad Huttnick, Wisconsin DNR Silviculturist. Still working until I not only speak for the trees, but they start to talk back. And we're your host for today's show. Greg, have you seen the Wisconsin Forestry Center's harvester stimulator? This thing is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

No, I haven't. But Susan and Jared are supposed to be here soon to give us a demo. So Brad, don't touch anything. Don't touch anything. Let your f let a little Greg, come on, let your freak flag fly. Let's see what this baby can do.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Nah, I don't think so. I really think we should just wait, Brad. I really think we should wait.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

You know, Greg, I think the stock garters are on a little too tight today. Come on, I'm taking this thing for a spin.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Hey, leave my stocks out of it. Once again, four life choices rule the day. Whatever, whatever, Greg.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Okay, let's see. It's just like an Xbox. It's all the risk critics. Watch this. We're gonna maneuver over to this virtual tree.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Well, well, critical system error. Congratulations, Bradley. You've broken their new simulator. I think those things are pretty pricey. You break it if you buy it.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

That'll fix everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Oh hey guys. Hey Jared. Guess what? You're here just in the nick of time, right, Brad? Just in the nick of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

I know you do have to get to your silvercast interviews, so let's get the simulator up and running. Uh what's going on with this thing?

SPEAKER_04 2:11

I'm pretty sure turning it off and back on uh that won't help.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

And how do you know that, Brad?

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Yeah, well, the thing is, Jared, uh I kind of um I I tried it out before you came and uh things went a little sideways.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wondered why you look like that. No worries, Brad. Even you can't break this computer. Well, we'll we'll get it working. But you may not want to tell Susan about this.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, good point, good point. You don't tell mom everything, right? Even though you crashed and burned on the simulator, maybe you can get some pointers today, Brad, about the real thing. Because we need to go now and meet our guest. Carl Lockhart, forestry product consultant with John Deere, Carl is gonna answer all the questions you are afraid to ask about the equipment that makes silvicultural prescriptions come to life. Excellent.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

And you know what? With this little practice, I think I'm ready for the real thing. No. Thank you to our seasoned sponsors, the Family Forest Carbon Program and the Nelson Paint Company. You make the Silvicast world go round.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Carl Lockhart, welcome to SilvaCast. It's really nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Nice to meet you as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

For our listeners out there, can you tell us just a little bit about where you work and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

I am the wheel cut-to-length sales manager for North America for John Deerck. So that means that I'm responsible for wheel harvester and forwarder sales in US and Canada. And then I also am responsible for full-line forestry sales in the lake states. I've been with deer almost 20 years, and my background is all in logging, trucking, and forestry. Uh my dad was a forester, he owned a trucking business. I have a bachelor's degree in forestry from Michigan Tech. I've worked in wood procurement, and like I say, I've been with deer for the last almost 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Wow. And you're covering a lot of territory there, so you must uh have to get around.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, I spend quite a bit of time. I usually put on about 50 to 75,000 miles in the air and another 30 to 50,000 miles in the truck.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

So where's home base for you, Carl?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Upper Michigan. I live in the west end of the UP, about an hour north of uh Landa Lakes.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Greg, this is uh week two for our Michigan Tech. So we hit We got a lot of Michigan techers here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I wasn't sure if I should share that or not, not being a point graduate. I didn't know if that'd be oh no, no.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

No, we we told Julia we claim Michigan Tech is our third state school. So Michigan just doesn't know. They pay for it, but we claim it now.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

That's a neat trick.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Carl, today we're we're digging into harvesting equipment and silvicultural systems and how they intersect. And I think a lot of times, and I I think maybe for me, um it's always good to go back to the basics because it there are a lot of things I think I know, but then when we start talking about it, I realize, oh, maybe maybe I don't know that as well as I thought I did. So just to start from a very basic sense, it here in the Lake States, the northeast, you know, kind of this uh area that you work in that we we've kind of um we're familiar with the forest in this area. What are the types of equipment that foresters are mostly like gonna run into when they're dealing with loggers on their timber sales?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, so the most common machines that you would see, like from a full tree system, you would see track feller bunchers to a lesser degree, wheel feller bunchers, uh skitters, and knuckle boom loaders. Maybe not so much in Wisconsin, but in Minnesota, you would still see a handful of stroke dilemmers. And then on the cut-to-length side, you'd see track harvesters, wheel harvesters, and forwarders. And then for you know what I refer to as hybrid systems, you would see track filler bunchers or wheeled feller bunchers running ahead of wheel harvesters or uh tract harvesters, and that's most prevalent, you know. The the poorer quality the sand, the more prevalent those hybrid systems are.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

You know, Greg, I realized when we were talking that I think you pointed out to me that I called them, I always talked cut the length as a processor, and then realized that okay, maybe that's not really, you know, it's a little more technical than just having a processor.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

I was looking too on John Deere's website, and that I noticed there were no processors per se. It was all harvesters when I was looking at cut the length, and I was thinking, oh, have I been using the wrong term all these years?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Terminology that I use is we list you know either wheel harvesters or track harvesters. We do list some processors, and the the distinction that I would throw out there is harvesters are working in the woods and processors are working roadside or at the landing, and that's much more prevalent, like in the US southeast or in Canada. I don't know if that's a proper definition, but that's the definition that I use is harvesters are going essentially stump to stump, and processors are staying at or near the roadside.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

So harvesters are actually felling trees, and and as you said, processors are maybe working processing that wood technically.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, and again, that's that's the definition I use. I'm sure if you pull you know a hundred people, you'd get a hundred different answers.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Yeah, well, we're gonna take you as the expert on it. I'm gonna say if people ask me in the future, I I asked the expert, and this is what it was, and I'm gonna change it because I Greg, we're all about terms and detail, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Well, sure, Brad. Yeah, whatever. Okay, all right, all right. Depending on the situation, yeah, all right. But no, that's good to know. I mean, it's because uh you're thinking about maybe like the different functions of the these pieces of equipment and giving them you know maybe maybe a name that's uh appropriate to that function.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

So yeah, and we kind of try to look at the whole system, and you know, we we kind of look at it from a system standpoint, and then we're always trying to identify and eliminate bottlenecks in the system, or to look at it another way, we're trying to create through the whole system to make the whole thing more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And you kind of alluded to it, I think, in your answer before, but it sounds like uh we tailor different pieces of equipment to different situations. You mentioned the I think the feller bunchers uh with the uh processing machines in low quality wood. So I guess that was kind of uh an area that Brad and I wanted to talk about. Like, are different types of machines, sizes, boom heads uh appropriate or better for certain types of harvests? You know, what are they best suited for, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So as a general rule, the the trees you're cutting should dictate the heads that you're using, and then the head that you're using dictate what carriers you use. So, for instance, if you if you're cutting you know bigger diameter hardwood, maybe hardwood saw timber, you need a bigger, heavier harvesting head to to handle that bigger, heavier, more challenging wood. And that bigger, heavier harvester head means that you would have to use a track harvester that has more lift and and swing power as opposed to a wheeled harvester that doesn't have as much of that boom power. You know, ideally that's how you would do it, but our forests vary so much here that we almost have to gear up for the worst wood that we're going to encounter, and then everything else is is easier, you know, like in other parts of the world where they have a lot of plantations, you know, you have contractors that only do first thinnings, let's say. So they have small, nimble machines with smaller heads because they're always cutting small diameter wood, and and they stay in those types of stands all the time, so they optimize for that. But here, even on the same timber sale, you might have a unit of red pine thinning, and you might have an aspen clear-cut unit that's got everything from three inches in diameter up to 22, and then you know, you might have a hardwood thinning unit in there that's marked. You know, we can't optimize to just one thing we have to gear up to be versatile, and so that means that we have to kind of upsize from maybe what the the wood should require.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Does it matter? Like uh, so the equipment is one thing, and then you have like that the head on a on a um a cut-to-length system. Does does that matter like in in those situations too? Because I've we've talked to loggers who are working with uh a hot saw or they're working with a uh a dangle uh head, and and I know they've talked about it, and and they'll say, oh, you know, they'll they'll talk about it at length, but I'm never sure if if if that makes a difference as far as like like the sales that we're looking at and them being involved in.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, so generally speaking, the poorer the quality the stand, the more beneficial it is to run a feller buncher ahead of the harvester. Because when you have a lot of underbrush and you have a harvester head with a saw chain on it, it tends to break chains and throw chains off of the sawbar when you have a lot of underbrush. So in stands that are brushy or stands that have really crooked, gnarly wood, just poor quality stands either haven't been managed or are way, way overmature. Um, running the feller buncher can have significant productivity improvements and also more durability improvements too. So the feller buncher is a tank, it's it can take the abuse, whereas wheeled harvesters tend to be a little more finicky and require a little more technique and not so much brute force. So you you isolate all the because most of the damage to a machine happens during felling. So if the feller buncher runs ahead of the other machines and does all the felling and cuts out all the brush and cuts the bigger limbs and crotches out of the hardwood trees, all of that makes it easier for everybody else downstream that's gonna follow.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Are there areas of say the northeast here or even into Canada where you would see more of the feller buncher, that kind of operation that you're talking about? The feller buncher followed by a processor?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Pretty much the predominant systems now, certainly in Canada, it would be track feller bunchers ahead of harvesters and forwarders. Um, here in the lake states, I would say it's it's probably 60 to 70 percent of the the crews are running a track feller buncher ahead of the harvesters in the northeast, it would be very similar. So basically, again, because of the varying terrain and the varying timber types that we have, it's just it's so much more productive to run the buncher ahead of the harvesters. When you're in really nice pole stands, if you're in a really nice red pine second thinning or something like that, there's no benefit to running a feller buncher ahead of the harvester there, you know. But but when you have poor quality stands with lots of underbrush, then that's where they really shine. It it also kind of depends on markets and how much quota you have. I mean, you know, we just had the announcement about Mozin E here last week. Nobody's gonna be as interested in being really productive when you know we're assuming we're gonna be on quota, you know. So it's that that takes away some of that incentive. And if you're running one harvester and one forwarder behind a feller buncher, then the economics don't work unless it's an older used feller buncher. If you have a bigger operation and and you have two harvesters and two forwarders running behind one feller buncher, then you have full utilization of all five pieces. So there's there's sort of an economy of scale that you hit there that if if you're smaller than that, you don't realize the full benefit because the the feller buncher can way out cut what the harvesters can process out of piles behind it.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Carl, I've heard a lot of conversations over the years among foresters about the head type, uh, particularly these conversations about dangled head versus fixed heads and about the ability of one versus the other to remove wood without damaging other trees. In your experience, are there big differences there, or does it come down to operator and their ability?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Most of it is operator for sure. I mean, uh, you know, a really good operator will make anything look good, and a really bad operator will make anything look bad. But the thick harvester heads, they can only cut the face that's towards the machine. So, you know, a thick head, the benefit of it is you can cut the tree off, you can lift it up, hold it vertical, back up, and find a hole in the canopy to lay that tree down. But the whole time from when you sever the tree from the stump and you're backing up and you're moving around and you're navigating to find that hole, that's not productive time. So that tree becomes really expensive because you're wasting so much time doing something other than cutting or processes. But you you know, you do have that ability to find a hole in the canopy. The flip side of that is if you have to double cut a tree because the diameter is too big or it's got a heavy lean or it's next to the boundary line or something, you cause a lot more disturbance by having to cut one face and then track all the way around and then swing the machine around to make your back cut. So that's a a real detriment with a fixed head. Whereas with a danglehead, the danglehead has more reach, the danglehead can cut three differ three to four different sides of the tree. So if I need to make a face cut, and then I can just whip the head around and make a backcut without having to move the carrier itself, and so that's a huge advantage that minimizes ground disturbance. The other thing is that with the dangle head, because I'm not trying to hold that tree up vertically, it allows the machine to have more boom reach. So there's more of the wood that I can sit in the trail and reach out to grab that tree and pull it back into the trail to process it and have all the wood laying right next to the trail. Whereas with a fixed head, because of the shorter boom reach, because of the requirement to hold that tree up vertical, the shorter boom reach means that you're always kind of cheating and ducking off of the trail just a little bit to get that one next tree and then backing back into the trail. And every time you do that, you cause a little more ground disturbance. The other thing with the dangleheads is that the the danglehead, you know, you can still move a tree, you can cut a tree on the right side and make it end up over on the left. It's just a different technique. You know, you you cut it, you fell it over here, and then you drag the butt around, and then you start to process that tree. It still gets there, it's just a different technique. But the the good thing about dangleheads is that when you do that felling cut and that tree starts to go, the head goes in the float. So you can't force it down through the canopy. It'll the tree will kind of find the path of least resistance. So while you can't carry it back to find a hole, you also, because it's only using gravity to fell the tree, it finds the path of least resistance and and in that way causes less canopy damage.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

That's interesting. I never really thought about like all those different aspects of control and how that influences maybe what the result is. I think those a lot of those conversations I've been involved in over time, for a lot of the foresters conclude, as you said in the beginning, operator skill really is huge, uh, no matter what piece of equipment they're using.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

You see this evolution where you have, you know, people started out using cases and draughts with shears on them that were modified excavators. And so when they went from those machines to start running harvesting heads, they naturally went to fixed heads because it looked and felt and operated like the previous shears that they had been running. So the technique was largely the same, and so it was an easier transition. When you start looking at directional felling heads or dangle heads, there's much more technique involved and and much less brute force. So you kind of have to relearn when you go from running a fixed head to running a dangle head. You you have to learn a new set of tricks and a new way to think and approach the site. And so some guys don't want to do that, they're comfortable with how they've been doing it for a long time, and that's good enough, and that's how we're gonna do it. And you know, there are some distinct advantages to doing it that way that they will cling to, but overall, I think the dangle heads or directional felling heads give you more flexibility to do things than than the fixed heads do.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

Kind of seems to me that it kind of for us as foresters, the big question is you know, if we want to be successful, we want to see this sale cut right, but we don't know what equipment is going to be coming into it. So what's the best way to kind of mark a timber sale if we want to be cognizant of of maybe a variety of of uh of different types of equipment that might be used?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

My number one thing would be don't skimp on the paint. Make sure that make sure that you use lots of paint and the paint can be seen from you know all four faces of the tree. Whether that's you know, big flashes from each side or that's you know, painting each face. You have no idea, nobody has any idea how that sail is gonna get cut. So make sure that the trees that are marked, if they're gonna be marked, you can see them from all directions, especially if it's gonna be cut in the summertime and the leaves are still gonna be on. Make sure that you know you have a paint color that contrasts what's around it and don't skimp on the paint. Because in the old days, you know, everybody kind of went to the they cut a trail to the back and then they kind of worked their way out when they were hand cutting and cable skitting. So you sort of had a good idea of where how you were gonna attack that. But now you might attack it differently. Depending on which way the wind is blowing or what time of day it is, whether the sun is in your eyes or the sun is behind you. You know, those kind of weather factors come much more into play when you're harvesting with a machine because you you can't see as as well if you have dirty windows or you have scratched windows or cracked windows, or you know, you know, if I want to be felling, you know, I want to fell everything to the right and be feeding to the left. And if the wind is coming really bad from the right, then I have to spin around and cut the other side of the block or cut the other side of my trail to play the wind. You know, I don't want to be heading directly into the sunlight because it reflects off my windshield and I'm I'm staring in the sun all day. I can't see the tops to make sure that I'm not doing canopy damage if I'm looking in straight into the sun. So I might wheel around and cut the other way in the afternoon so I'm not looking right directly at the sun. So just make sure that you can see paint from all the sides.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought about the conditions being part of that harvesting, like you know, where you're going. That's that's really interesting. Well, and and the thing I was gonna ask is I know we always had discussions in the field about you know, if if it was uh if it was if people were hand felling, then we could put those marks fairly low. But some of the early stuff I heard was yeah, yeah, put your marks fairly high because in that processor in the cab, you want to be able to see that fairly. Is that correct? Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yep, I would say that, and then that also gets it above the brush, or it's more likely to get it above the brush too if you have your marks up higher.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

You mentioned it earlier, Carl, about different machines have different boom reaches. Can you say something about that? Like, what kind of reach do they have, and then does that influence the marking as well? Like, if I'm gonna consider you know, how far they can say reach into a thinning, for example, from the skid trail.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, so I mean, I would say most machines today have somewhere between 25 and 33 feet a reach. I mean, you know, most harvesters have a 10-meter boom, wheeled harvesters have a 10-meter boom. A lot of the track harvesters, because of the bigger, heavier heads, only have like an 8.5 meter boom. And so I would say you're somewhere in between 25 and 33 feet. You know, obviously you want to minimize your number of trails, but you also have to consider that if if your trail or your your corridors are such that you're always having to reach out the full 33 feet, it takes a lot of time to reach all the way out there, cut the tree off, and you you have much less lift available, so you have much less control at the full reach of the machine than you do in close. And so it takes a lot of time to reach out there, cut that tree off, drag it back, and start to process it close to the trail where it needs to be for the forwarder to pick it off.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

So if I'm a forester and I'm gonna set up like predetermined skid trails, that's a good thing to think about in terms of you know, my uh initial reaction might be I want to put them uh 60 feet apart and really uh maximize that reach, but you're saying that that's gonna have consequences in terms of the ability to control that tree when you're out that far on the boom. So there's gonna be uh, you know, maybe some consequences to that.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, if you reach out with your hand and you pick up, you know, a 10-pound weight at full reach, you you can do it, but it's not comfortable or easy. And then you take that same weight and you you know you come halfway in towards your body and you lift it up, no problem. It's the same thing with the machine, it's you have less capability out there at full reach. You can reach that far and you can do it, but it's just it's not ideal and it slows you down.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

How would topography play into that?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, so you know, if you're working on slopes for safety, you have to be able, especially the steeper the slopes, the more it's critical to have the machine straight up and down and not side hilling. So when you're painting, you want to be thinking in you know of corridors that are running vertically up the hill, not sideways across the hill. You know, if if you think about it from a forestry standpoint, you'd say, well, I want to minimize erosion, so I'm not gonna give them nice clean vertical paths up and down the hill where water could potentially come down. But if you go sideways, it's a huge safety factor safety issue, particularly with forwarders. You know, if you start side hilling with a forwarder when you get more than half loaded, it's extremely dangerous. And and the other thing with that is if you're side hilling the machines when they're sideways or or on a side hill, you know, we always say the machine grows when it's on a side hill, because instead of you know being let's say 10 or 11 feet wide when it's straight, you know, the corners start to move, and that you know, that machine's 12 or 13 feet wide when it's sitting on a side hill. And then, you know, if if your trail isn't wider to accommodate that, then you start doing more residual stand damage because that machine got wider as it got off slope.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yeah, I learned that lesson uh in uh red pine thinning. And yeah, once that got sloped too much, that forwarder bunk tipped enough and it scuffed all the trees on that side, and you're like, why did they scuff those trees? And like, oh, my lanes were too narrow for that slope and the locker. He uh he had a term he called it sidling. Oh, that was too sidling, he said.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yep. So in that case, you know, if if that the trail has to be there for some reason that's non-negotiable, then that trail has to be wide. Much better for everybody involved if you can keep trails on slopes going vertically. Yeah, then the machine doesn't get wider. The machine is longer than it is wide, so it's more stable when you can keep those slopes going straight up and down. It just overall is safer.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

So, not knowing what equipment we have coming in, how wide would you is there a general rule of thumb about how wide you would make the trails?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I mean, most of the most of the equipment now is you know somewhere between 10 and 11 feet wide. So, and then you need a little bit extra. So I would say 12 feet is probably the minimum. And then, like I say, you know, even if it's relatively flat, but you have a stump on one side and you have a hole on the other side, and and that the bunk of the forwarder is pitching back and forth, it's still you know wider than that. But you know, if if you assume you know a 12-foot wide corridor, you just have to have the flexibility that you know, in certain circumstances, we might have to take some operational trees and and have that written into the contract, you know, what's going to happen in in that case, you know, cut them and leave them, or cut them and and tally them and and charge for them, or you know, which is probably the ideal. But you know, having that flexibility to take operational trees helps take some of the pressure off of the planning.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

I think too, you want a little wiggle room because you don't want them riding right up on the root collars of trees, too. So they're gonna need some space there because the root collars come out into that.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yep. And then too, when you're you know, sometimes you're encouraging the the logger to run tracks on his machines to lower the ground pressure while the machine gets wider then when you're running tracks. You know, you you just added another four inches of width when you put tracks, so you know, there has to be some some flexibility there. Really, I would I would sort of discourage or stay away from trying to be too prescriptive about where trails are gonna go anyway, unless there's a you know a really hard and fast reason, like this is the only entry point, here's why. You know, otherwise I would I would leave it up to the logger that's cutting the sale.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Well, and oftentimes I think you know, like the forester might have other purposes for the trail. Is is the best way then do you think like to plan it on site with the forester, kind of walk through where each of those trails would be? Because Greg, I know in my experience, we've gone back and forth where we've planned them out and and actually done pre-work with it, and then we've said we turned around with other sales and said, let's see what you guys think before we get there. We didn't really have any pad answers about what was the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Unless you know that you know, we looked at the topo map, and this is the only way that's feasible from a slope standpoint to get up on this little knoll to cut the top of it or whatever. You know, in those cases, if there's a clear-cut reason, probably everybody would identify that and agree that that's a clear-cut reason why the trail has to go here. But otherwise, there could be like, you know, the logger is or the operator is gonna say, there's a lot more painted trees over here, so I'm gonna make my trail through where the trees are painted, and then I won't have to take any operational trees. Or it's really thin over there, I don't want to put my trail there because you know, there's one, there's not enough trees to cut, and two, that looks like it's gonna be kind of muddy and I won't have enough brush to put in the hole to try and protect the trail and minimize the ground disturbance.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Just my history or experience that uh when I've tried to designate the trails, I've run into problems because A, what it comes back to what we talked about earlier, I didn't know what the equipment exactly was going to be on site. So that was a limiting factor. And then I didn't see things that the logger couldn't navigate. Like the the logger came back and said, Yeah, that's nice that the trail's there, but that erosion ditch right there tipped too much, and I can't get the piece of equipment around this one point. I'm like, oh yeah, I see that now. So it's so hard to see those things. So I was always had more uh success kind of just setting uh sort of the the parameters of what I'd like to see. And then as you said, Brad, having that discussion with the logger when the sale uh was gonna be implemented and then talk through what needed to be done.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

I think just overall, you know, as a general rule, just being more collaborative like that, and you know, working together with whoever's cutting the sale, you know, even a simple thing like go and ride with them, you know, go ride with them in the harvester for a couple of hours and see what it looks like from the cab. You know, challenges that you don't even think of are like major pain points, you know, to the operator because of the brush or the sunlight or the wind or the side hill or you know, the his set of challenges is much different, just as important, but much different than the set of challenges that you're trying to do with your prescription and and you know what you're trying to achieve from a you know basal area standpoint or a region standpoint or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah. I think that's a great piece of advice for almost any forester out there to take that time and really start to learn those challenges. I think you learn a lot then about the marking that you would do after that.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yep. And you I mean, it's just kind of a continuous improvement mindset. I mean, like when I used to buy wood for a sawmill, there would be loads where I was sort of questioning if if I should have bought it or if I paid too much for it. I would just go sit up in the the operator station on the head rig and just watch them cut those logs open and see the little defect that I spotted. You know, did that turn into a much bigger defect once the log was opened up? And, you know, I could learn a lot from watching it from a different perspective.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Season seven of Silvicast was made possible thanks to sponsors like the Family Forest Carbon Program. The Family Forest Carbon Program pays landowners to improve the health of their land and increase the long-term value of their property. The program equips landowners with the resources and support to implement sustainable practices that help them reach their own goals for their woodlands while also improving the health of their forests and our planet. To learn more about how you can access these benefits for your forest, visit familyforestcarbon.org.

SPEAKER_04 35:08

So we've we've talked about a lot about the trees that we want to take out, but oftentimes, you know, part of our harvest is really making sure we're putting growth onto the trees we really want there in the long run. So in in your experience, if we have like say we have a crop tree, we have these beautiful trees that we want as part of it, should we be buffering those or should we be doing anything special to kind of avoid damage to them as we go through a timber sale?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

I think if you buffer them too much, statistically you start taking a lot of your land base out of production.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

You know, if you have one tree that you're trying to protect and you leave five as a buffer, then maybe those five shouldn't have still been there, you know, from a space spacing or basal area standpoint. So I I think just unless there's something specific like this is a you know a shelter wood and we have to protect these, or this is a seed tree for hemlock, it's really hard to regenerate. So we really want to be you know mindful of this, then then sure you could, but I think overall it's too hard to predict that and it would take too much land out of production.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Yeah, that sounds good. So I know the other piece that we think about oftentimes, so there might be trees that are really good, and on the on the other end, it's the dead trees, so we might be trying to preserve them because they're a little more fragile, because they're a safety concern, what's the best way to approach them?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah, so whenever I hear wildlife tree in my head, I hear hazard tree. So, you know, I always worry about those because even even though the operator is inside of a machine, you know, he's much more protected than a handfaller would be on the ground. It still can be dangerous working around those snags. So if they're unstable, they need to come down. And if you know, if we're trying to preserve them, then we should probably stay away from them altogether and you know not put somebody in harm's way having to work right next to a snag that we're trying to preserve.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

So in that case, maybe then the buffer is legit. And then in but in the other case, like you said, Brad, a crop tree, you might actually part of the purpose of the prescription might be to thin around that crown. So you might want the logger right in there and uh removing the trees adjacent.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, because a lot of times, like let's say it's the seed tree and you're trying to encourage regen. You know, I've seen it where we wrote that you had to use tire chains or cracks right in the prescription to try and stir up bare mineral soil to help with regen. You know, so there might be a silvicultural reason why you definitely want somebody in there rooting around and and stirring things up.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

Switching things up a little bit. You know, we've been talking a lot about, you know, really just having making sure we have really good communication with foresters, uh whether it's roads or you know, just the intent of the sale. I think a lot of that stuff between foresters and loggers, it's just really good to have good communication on the site. Part of communication is mapping, you know, having our different tools for communication. And that's one thing that's changed since you know, over the over the last couple of years that we're seeing lots of apps being involved or lots of other mapping programs, things like that. What's your experience with that? Are there things that we should be looking at or exploring as far as apps that actually facilitate these discussions?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Yeah, so I'll admit right up front, I'm kind of biased here because we have our own mapping system in the machines. Full disclosure there. But I think even five years ago it was tough to get people to use mapping. I mean, we've been playing around with it since 2018 in Wisconsin. So we started testing our mapping system around 2018, and we've been running it since then, and it's really starting to catch on now where customers are telling us I need to have maps on this machine. And so we can use, I think we have seven different file formats that we can use. So we can use shape files, we can use KML files, we can use GPX files. So we can, you know, we if like let's say the DNR has those files generated when they put a timber sale up, if your foresters can share those, especially shape files, are the most useful for us, then we can, you know, we can import those files, we can create sites, and we can do things like alarm boundaries so that we can have a cut block boundary in there based on your shape files. When the machine gets within 10 meters of that cut block boundary, it starts to flash on the screen and it starts to alert the operator that look, you're within reach of the boundary line, you need to start to pay attention. We can also use mapping to alert on entry. So if you have an exclusion area like a riparian zone or something like that, and you have shape files for that, we can alarm it so that when you get within 10 meters of that, it'll tell you stay out. You know, it'll again start flashing the monitor and tell you you're within 10 meters of an exclusion zone, you need to start to pay attention. So we can alarm on exit or we can alarm on entry. The more generic things, like a lot of people use Avenza maps, you know, or georeference PDFs. Those are useful because they're free, right? It's better than nothing, and it's easy, you know, for your foresters to take their shape files and generate an Avenza PDF. But an Avenza PDF just shows you where you are, a dot on a map. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't alarm when you get close to a boundary. There's a lot of functionality that it doesn't have, and so it's free, but it's also more limited in what it can do. Like with our mapping system, it has a messaging feature. So like from the office, they can message the machine directly and you know send the timber sale contract so you know exactly what the prescription is, what species are allowed to be cut, things like that. You can have the contract right on the you know, saved on the computer in the machine. Or, you know, you can have a cutting list of you know, what is the mill accepting this week as far as cutting specs, you know, you can message that back and forth between the machine and the office, or really not even the office, just any internet connected device where you can log into your account. So there's a lot of lot more technology that's onboard the machine that's being used today. The the other thing that you can do with that is you can message between the machines. And the example that I always use is we had a harvester running on a private sale, and he was cutting and he came across this old pile of scrap iron, and it was full of you know sharp old T-posts and things like that, you know, as hazards, especially for cutting tires or things like that. So the operator and the harvester he drew a line around that little area that he had encountered and he put a an alert there. So he put an exclusion zone and he sent an alert to the forwarder so that the forwarder wouldn't risk cutting a tire or having an issue with that same sort of danger zone. So there's with with that ability to create areas of interest or lines of interest or points of interest kind of on the fly, you keep the data updated. And then with that, you also have a tracking layer so that you can see where a tree has been cut, you can see the species and assortments that were cut out of that tree. It leaves little dots, and then the forwarder can find the dots. And the benefit of that is that one, we have a tracking layer, so we can see where the machines have been. That tracking layer gets bolder or more filled in the more times you go back and forth over the same area, so you can see at a glance where the main trails are. The forwarder can see where all of the logs are are laying on the ground, so they can kind of plan their route or optimize the route that they take to pick up the wood, which will lead to fewer passes over the ground and hopefully less ground disturbance because you optimize the route that you went around to pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we talk about trying to limit the amount of skid trails to a certain percentage of the ground, and that technology really gives you the capability to monitor and figure that out. Whereas in the past, right, we're just you're just searching for the wood. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

And we use it a lot, you know, from from a product. activity standpoint, you know, again, quotas being a thing now, you know, we can say, oh, okay, we're going to be on quota starting Friday. So we need to go pick up all the hardwood pulps, you know, today and tomorrow before we're on quota on Friday. So they can in in the mapping layer, they they can turn off everything that isn't hardwood pulp and go around and just focus on picking that up. And then you know after Friday we can go around and pick up all the logs and bolts. You know, we can turn those those species and assortments back on in our map and then optimize those routes.

SPEAKER_04 44:38

I just imagine someone a forester stumbling into this conversation five to ten years from now going, it's so quaint what they used to do because it'll be so much more advanced then, you know, it'll be like, oh those guys were so simple.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Right. Yep. Well we can say the same thing over our careers, right? Of oh yeah how much this has changed.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

I remember seeing my very first GPS unit and going, oh my God, this is going to revolutionize my life.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

You know that was back in the 1970s Brad Yeah. It was a long time ago Greg. A long time ago. One thing you touched on Carl and maybe it warrants going back to a little bit was how can we minimize in some cases we're trying to minimize the ground disturbance from the equipment and so you gave some ideas of just from the technology standpoint on how we can do that. But from that kind of current machinery state like how does ground pressure and machine weight vary with these different pieces of equipment how can we minimize maybe on some of the wetter sites we have some of that impact and kind of what's the status of that in modern day logging equipment?

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Well from the most basic terms we can make a machine be narrow or we can make it have good flotation or low ground pressure but we generally can't do both. You know because usually you know we have to go to bigger tires to lower ground pressure or wider tracks to lower ground pressure. So if we want low ground pressure generally that means we need a little bit bigger trails. If we want narrow trails that means narrow tires that means higher ground pressure and more disturbance. So it's it's always a trade off. And what's funny is you know for a long time in the lake states we worried about width. You know the old you know Fab Tech 133s were eight foot six wide and they could just just skinny down between the rows of red pine and we fought that for a long time and then realized that if we just take out one more row we can run any machine we want and we can reach into the block instead of trying to skinny through and scar up the in between those ropes. And you know if we look at like in Australia or in Tasmania when they're doing thinnings they're using the biggest possible machines they have wider skid trails or wider corridors and then they just reach into the block and pull all the wood back out to the trail but they're not using the smallest most narrowest machines to do thinnings they're using the biggest machine possible with the most reach they're bringing all the brush back into the trail and then they're using the biggest forwarders possible to minimize the number of trips and that also allows them to get a little bit longer forwarding distances and still be productive. So there's different approaches to it but generally speaking we're past the days of the eight foot six wide machines because they're they're too small to be productive anymore and if you look at you know whether it be John Deere KimberPro Kamatsu uh Tiger Cat nobody is making those small small small machines anymore you know our discussion about the technology you know about the mapping systems that you guys have on on in the cabs now and got me thinking you know a lot of times we talk about logger select so we'll have a prescription and then we'll try to implement it with the logger are is there a way to kind of capitalize on that to assist with just the management itself? I would say not on a production scale yet. So I think there's some people that are playing around with you know taking a site scanning it with lidar getting a basal area and then kind of trying to prescribe which trees will be removed. I think that works okay in plantations if you have relatively uniform tree size and quality I don't think it works in hardwood stands because I don't know that the resolution is good enough to see facial defects yet. We have simulators that we use for operator training those simulators they have like 50 individual lessons in them that start at this is how you turn the machine on and go to this is the sequence that you cut the trees to be working you know using a systematic working method to be productive and efficient. Then cutting the tree to your right to leave yourself a canopy gap because you want to be felling everything to the right then cutting the tree to the left to give you room to have to pile next to the trail you know those kind of systematic things where you take one two three you know those we try to teach those things through our simulators and operator training but as of right now there's nothing on board the machine that is in real time looking ahead of where the harvester is and guiding them on which sequence to take the trees it won't surprise me that we'll get there someday but the I think the scanning technology has to get better before we can use that for operator guidance.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

That's where like quantity versus quality you know where that quality really comes into play that's going to be so hard to to be able to judge it unless you're actually staring at the tree I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Yeah like I know Purdue is looking at a project where they were like two years ago where they were scanning their hardwood stands with LIDAR and then they were applying their own proprietary filters to the lidar data to get an idea of crown form and crown shape and crown density and how much merchable wood you had between a you know a 12 inch stump height and where the crown started to branch out. You know they were starting to really filter that lidar data to take a look at quality in hardwood stands but it was at least like two years ago it was still in the research phase.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

So you're saying at least for the time being foresters still have a job out there marking trees?

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Well yeah the only reason I I hesitate there is because we did some demos for the Society of American foresters many years ago boy that was probably 13 years ago. So we had a group of foresters that came out on a site that we were cutting and my partner who was running the harvester he's run a harvester for 25 years. He got a lot of murmurs when he said I can cut this stand better than you can mark it. But he went on to explain that look I know where I can go with the machine I know what trees I have to take to get the machine through the stand and then I can take less so instead of being on a strict grid I can take a few less trees to leave some basal area there to make up for the ones I have to take for an operating corridor to get in an audience. And that was his point. And when he explained that then they said okay well yes you understand where that machine can go and and we don't but it he was doing it on purpose. He was sort of gigging them a little bit on purpose to to spur that discussion on but it ended up being a really productive discussion to look at trading operational trees for a strict basal area that you're trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

And I know and Brad you've known loggers over the years that have that many years of experience and they've seen enough prescriptions and implemented enough prescriptions they they know what things look like and they know how to implement it. So that doesn't surprise me at all.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

I mean they're professionals too right they want to do a good job and and they you know their reputation will precede them good or bad too. So and anybody that's left today for the most part just because the industry is in such tough shape right now anybody that's left is probably pretty good at what they do. So I mean there's still a few hacks out there but for the most part it's a pretty professional group of people.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

Yeah. That's been my experience too you know just sitting down and talking to people in the machines is that they really know their stuff. It's just a matter of having those conversations. I was just going to say just you know maybe just wrapping things up a little bit if you could give like say us as foresters or or loggers one piece of advice when it comes to marking sales and just making these things as efficient and as as fruitful as possible what would what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 53:41

I kind of covered them both already. One don't skimp on paint splash the paint out there like it's free because the more paint that you have if you are marking the easier it is for the guy sitting in the seat. The second thing I would say is you know be flexible and be collaborative. You know ride with the operator to see what he sees you know ask him to take a walk so you can show him the part of the stand that you're really really concerned about and you know kind of you know leave them alone in the part that is is not really that sensitive and just be kind of collaborative and work together I think is the best thing that you can do. Because everybody has things that they miss and everything's has things everybody has things that are unforeseen that you know become real challenges when they kind of rear their ugly head.

unknown 54:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Well those are great pieces of advice especially for our new foresters and unlike the old dogs like us that have had to make a lot of mistakes lots of mistakes lots of mistakes lots of mistakes that's really good advice and this was a great conversation Carl just kind of going over sort of what's the status of some of this equipment is now I think it's really helpful for foresters. So thank you very much. My pleasure thanks for inviting me to do this it was an interesting conversation that's what most of our guests say it was reasonably fun. So if we can hit that standard we're doing well so fun no matter what there you go thanks Carl almost got it and there we go oh man thanks Jared for sticking around to fix this simulator Brad was going to be in really big trouble.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

Hey no hey no hey no hey but but while we got you here Jared congratulations and welcome to the Wisconsin Forestry Center Podcast Network.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

Okay so we don't have a network you have a new podcast right yeah we do yeah it's called Wood and Iron it's a podcast for loggers bilogers mostly I am not a logger but the co-host Blake Manley is a logger and we talk about and explore the needs and challenges of the people in the profession today.

SPEAKER_02 56:04

Cool well that's very fitting with our discussion today with Carl Lockhart Yeah you'll have to ask him how many uh simulators he's had to fix he's working on the real thing we don't want to let Brad anywhere near those oh we want to spend some money let's go play with the real thing well welcome to the Wisconsin Forestry Center podcast network is it Brad right that's right and we're expanding quickly now we're up a hundred percent the sky's the limit at this point so I know the answer to this Jared but where can people get a hold of this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 56:40

So people can find the podcast in similar locations that they can find Silvicast. They can go to our website uh wfc at uwsp.edu click on podcasts and in the drop down menu they'll find wood and iron.

SPEAKER_04 56:54

Cool and they can get it through any other podcast like if they're listening to this through their app they can just go out and search for it there too right yep that is correct.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

Well again thanks for joining us um and also for uh fixing the little mishap we had today no problem whatever good lord well thanks for listening to today's episode of Silvacast if you have ideas for future episodes or a question for the Dropbox please let us know. You can reach us at UW Stevens Points Wisconsin Forestry Center by emailing wfcd at uwsp.edu feel free to include a sound file of your question or comment if you want we learn best when we wrestle with questions so please keep them coming.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Take care everyone and as always thanks to our team Susan Barrett our executive producer Joe Rogers editor and IT Jedi Master theme music by Paul Frederick and of course UW Stevens Points Wisconsin Forestry Center.