Influence of bifurcation on thinning, productivity and harvester production costs of 'Pinus taeda' l

• Published in: Australian Journal of Crop Science Vol. 14; no. 8; pp. 1259 - 1263
• Main Authors: Diniz, Carlos Cézar Cavassin, Junior, Romano Timofeiczyk, Robert, Renato Gonçalves, Lopes, Eduardo da Silva, Silva, João Carlos Garzel Leodoro da, Oliveira, Felipe Martins de, Oliveira, Gustavo Silva
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.08.2020
• Subjects: Agricultural productivity; Evaluation; Loblolly pine; Methodology
• ISSN: 1835-2693; 1835-2707
• DOI: 10.21475/ajcs.20.14.08.p2377

In this work, we present that how bifurcation in Pinus trees can influence productivity and harvester production costs. Our example draws from one harvesting machine that works in thinning operations in forest plantations of Pinus taeda L. in a small Brazilian forestry company. To get daily productivity, we use the machine's system, which provides such daily information as total production. We also used a time and motion study to obtain the meantime to cut, delimb, and process the tree stem into logs. In this way, we separated the normal trees from the forked trees to get the operating cycle time of the machine and get the productivity to the two types of trees. The continuous timing method was used for this purpose. The results show an increase of up to 22.9% in the operational cycle time for cutting forked trees, resulting in reduction of productivity of 5.58 m3 for each hour worked. The production cost increased by 23.3% on operation of forked trees, as the machine took more time to perform the partial activities of the operational cycle. This study can help many companies and contractors to calculate the appropriate productivity and production harvest cost according to the type of tree stems from the plantation forest.