Cut-to-length logging

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cut-to-length logging (CTL) is a mechanized way to harvest trees. Trees are delimbed and cut to length right at the stump. The typical CTL setup uses two people and two machines: a harvester fells the tree, trims it, and cuts it into standard lengths; a forwarder carries the logs from the stump to a landing near a road where trucks can reach them. CTL is the main logging method in Europe. In North America and some less-developed regions, people often use full-tree or tree-length logging, especially for very large trees that the harvester head can’t handle. CTL is well suited to plantation forests where trees are smaller. But the equipment is expensive: a harvester and a forwarder together cost about $1 million.