Valga Puu, a forestry company of Graanul Invest, has acquired two next-generation Malwa harvesters. The compact and lightweight new harvesters enable better manoeuvring in forest thinnings and prevent ground damage that can occur during forest work, making forest maintenance more environmentally friendly for both the forest owner and forest in general.
Given its size, the Malwa harvester is a good helper in the maintenance of a young forest. The harvesters of Valga Puu are equipped with 700 mm tyres, which significantly improve the distribution of weight and improve traction, thus helping to preserve the forest ground. While navigating between young trees with large machines can cause significant damage to them as well as the forest land, then the new compact harvesters ensure the advantages of improved access and producing higher-quality material. According to the manufacturer, the weight of Malwa’s novel machine starts from approx. 5,400 kg and its length is 5–7 metres.
In its compact, but capable cutting head, the next-generation harvesters can move forest material with a diameter as small as 3 cm, which allows thinning the forest without damaging it. According to the manufacturer of the harvesters, compared to large forest machinery, using the compact harvester allows to leave 100–200 more trees per hectare undamaged.
Valga Puu is currently testing the new machines to figure out the limits of their capabilities and the best relation between the management and profitability of the forests.
Malwa Forest AB is developing and building machines for first and second thinning, which can operate between the trees in standing forest, causing little or no environmental damage and not requiring the traditional network of strip roads.
