Forestry Equipment

The forestry industry requires a wide range of specialized equipment and machinery to trim, cut, fell, load and move large trees on rough terrain and hard-to-get-to locations. 
The descriptive names for these machines are for their primary function. Some machines are designed for full-tree handling. They include skidded, wheeled and tracked feller bunchers, knuckle-boom loaders and swing machines. Others that are used to make the harvested trees suitable for transportation are known as wheeled or tracked harvesters, forwarders and swing machines.

Wheeled, tracked or pull-behind biomass equipment like top-loading or side-loading chippers, grinders and mulchers, some with conveyor systems.

Additionally, there are a number of specialized forestry heads and attachments, such as felling heads, harvesting heads, log forks and grapples. Some multipurpose excavator harvesting attachments make it possible for a single machine to clear away storm damage or prepare a woody site for construction. Their size and multifunction capability vary by model and manufacturer, but many of these heads not only fell trees, but can trim branches, debark trunks, cut them to length and move them to a pile or load them on a special logging trucks or logging trailers.