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Delimbing hybrid poplar prior to processing with a flail/chipper

Informally Refereed

Abstract

We compared the performance of a flail/chipper for processing a) whole poplar trees and b) poplar trees that had been roughly delimbed with a pull-through delimber. Production rate was about 10% higher for the delimbed trees. The reduced cost of flail/chipping would not cover the additional cost of delimbing with the machine mix tested, but changes to equipment might improve the situation. In the test configuration, the delimber processed 175 trees per productive hour, about half as many as the DDC. Delimbing separated about 35 dry pounds per tree of limbs, which may have higher value than the mixture of limb and bark residues produced by the flail from whole trees.

Keywords

Short-rotation forestry, delimbing, debarking, chipping

Citation

Hartsough, Bruce; Spinelli, Raffaele; Pottle, Steve. 2000. Delimbing hybrid poplar prior to processing with a flail/chipper. In: 2000 ASAE annual international meeting; 2000 July 09-12; Milwaukee, WI. Paper 00-5014. St. Joseph, MI/USA: American Society of Agricultural Engineers. 25 p.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/7316