MACHINERY
The extraction routes will be set out and mechanically
harvested material can be forwarded to roadside.
Oversized trees can then be felled and processed by the
chainsaw operators. With the forwarder loader’s 10 m
reach, George Gilder now rarely needs to venture off the
well-prepared extraction routes.
From the operator’s point of view, the headboard
design gives a good view into the load space and the
levelling cab (10 degrees to the side and 6 degrees fore
and aft) improves the working environment considerably.
Having worked excavator-based machines, George found
adapting to the rotating cabin easy. A few of the buttons
on the controls took a day or two to settle into the back
of the mind, but timber production was well up
from the start.
Working recently clearing ash on an
estate in the South Cotswolds, the
attributes of the John Deere 1110G
forwarder have been well tested.
The lower range of the gearbox
(0–7.5 km/h) worked well on
the haul up from the stream
to the woodland edge with
a full load of timber aboard.
The higher range (0–23 km/h)
took the forwarder gently
across agricultural land until
the stone track was reached.
There, the six-cylinder 6.8l diesel
engine could be opened up on the
kilometre climb to the timber landing
accessible to the wagons.
With well over 200 m³ of timber through
the landing or still awaiting uplift, ground
damage in the woodland and over the stone tracks has
been minimal. With the estate managing its farming
60 AUGUST 20 19 FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK
The financial basis
of the estate on the
Gloucestershire/
Oxfordshire border
relies mainly on
revenue from farming,
sporting interests
and property. A surge
in timber prices has
coincided with the
threat of tree diseases
to focus management
attention on plantations
and copses previously
considered to be of no
value at all for timber
production.interests mostly ‘in house’,
access over the agricultural
land for the duration of the
contract was assured by the
management. Nevertheless,
as a short spell of wet
weather set in and the
forwarder’s tyres started
leaving marks on the grass,
Jonathan Cook shifted the
team and the Rottne forwarder
to a more suitable site for a
week.
The 1110G had already built up a
considerable quantity of timber at the
landing, and had already proved it had the
speed and efficiency to make good any shortfall when
the soil conditions improved.While George has
settled down well with
his 290 ̊ turning
workstation, John
Deere forwarders are
still available with
fixed cabins. The new
constructions with
improved quality and
ergonomics have been
developed by global
creative company BMW
Designworks.Inset below: George
Gilder has made himself
quite at home in the
cabin of the John Deere
111 0G.