Eldorado National Forest

Georgetown Ranger District, California

A field demonstration of a unique piece of equipment was conducted on September 10, 2003, on the Georgetown Ranger District, Eldorado National Forest. The demonstration was sponsored by the Eldorado National Forest and the John Deere Corporation. The John Deere 1490D slash bundler collects, compresses, and bundles thinning slash and logging residues for effective and economical transport to a co-generation plant for energy production. The machine was tested on eight different sites in four western states. Each project site involved pretreatment measurements, elemental production study, post treatment measurement of effects, and technology transfer through "field day" demonstrations.

• Eldorado National Forest News Release (PDF, 477 KB) - an agency news release describing the bundling demonstration. The location stated in this notice is not correct. Contact the the Georgetown Range District for the new location.
• Forest Residue Bundler Evaluation Talking Points (PDF, 32 KB) - information about the slash bundling demonstration.

The original demonstration site was not practical due to the brittleness and small piece size of the slash. Bundles had poor integrity and did not hold together. The location of the demonstration was changed to ensure adequate machine performance.	The wood moisture contents of the slash was about 10 percent.
The alternate demonstration site included bundling slash from a landing pile.	Bundle size, weight, and moisture content was measured.
One truck load of bundles was transported to Wheelabrator's wood-to-energy plant in Anderson, California, for grinding and burning tests.	The slash bundling demonstration was well-attended and generated interesting discussion about fuels reduction and wood utilization.

Contacts

Tim Dabney, Georgetown Ranger District Ranger - Primary Media/Public Contact
Telephone: (530) 333-5500
E-mail: tdabney@fs.fed.us

Bob Rummer, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station Project Leader
Forest Operations Research
Telephone: (334) 826-8700
E-mail: rrummer@fs.fed.us