Dvoralai Wulfsohn

Institut for Maskinteknik

Aalborg Universitet
 

`Precision agriculture' or `site-specific management' - the use of satellites, computers and sensors to adjust inputs at specific locations in a field - has become a common term to European and North American Producers. But what is the potential of these technologies, and the special challenges for `precision' forestry?
 

A crucially important, potentially non-renewable, resource is the forest soil. `Soil compaction' due to the operation of aggressive forestry machinery during harvesting and stand-tending operations is a major concern for the sustainability of forests. We propose that data on site characteristics obtained from pre-harvest surveys (topography, vegetation, soil physical properties), combined with the use of an unsaturated soil property function database, mathematical models of machine-soil interaction (including the effects of slip, machine configuration and loading, soil conditions) and GIS can be used as an aid in site-specific planning of forestry operations. The role of such analyses would be the selection of machinery and/or the planning of skidding routes to minimise the potential for excessive soil compaction on a particular site. In this presentation, preliminary results of a study carried out on a 25-ha site in the Boreal forest of central Saskatchewan, Canada will be presented. The role of natural variability and the potential for spatial statistics will be discussed. The outlined approach is also suitable for soil compaction prediction on agricultural fields.