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Joint project: investigation and assessment of soil functions and derivation of solution strategies for a soil-protective timber harvest; Subproject 2: soil physical data and measuring sensors
Project
Project code: TI-AT-08-PID1903
Contract period: 01.06.2017
- 31.08.2020
Purpose of research: Applied research
In modern highly mechanized timber harvest, vehicle mass has been steadily increasing for decades. Heavier vehicles increase the performance of logging and thus allow to meet the growing demand for wood. Due to the increasing days of operating during unfavorable soil conditions there may be an impairment of the soil functions. How does this affect the soil functions and are there solution strategies for a soil-conserving timber harvest? These questions are to be answered in a joint project between the Thünen Institute of Agricultural Technology, the Northwest German Forestry Research Institute and the Niedersächsisches Forstplanungsamt. The increasing weight of machines used in the past decades has led to an increasing claim on the forest ecosystem. Due to the direct interaction between vehicle and ground, it is heavily claimed during harvesting and the ecosystem’s functionality is influenced. Their assessment is possible through a combined consideration of soil physical and soil biological indicators, which are recorded and evaluated by the Thünen Institute of Agricultural Technology in cooperation with the Northwest German Forestry Research Institute. The parameters should be related to the key indicator "rut depth", which is a visually easy to identify parameter for the machine operator. From the findings of the investigations, the knowledge gap on the chain of effects "machine - soil properties - soil functions" is to be closed, in order to derive ecological guidelines as a decision-making aid for the practice. Finally, the findings will be integrated into a future concept, from which a prognosis model of the driveability of forest soils will be created. The findings are to be integrated with meteorological data into a hazard map for the trafficability of forest soils to enable the prediction of the location- and weather-sensitive risk of passage. In addition, the development of a limit value transmitter is driven forward in order to avoid laborious manual measurements of rut depth and to support the workflow during the impact measure.
Section overview
Subjects
- Silviculture
- Forestry Technology
