Cost analysis of a forest seedling planting machine: a case study for BC

The Province of British Columbia forest tenure licensing practices require the replanting of tree seedlings in the place of logged forest. Reforestation is presently done manually by individual tree planters. Currently there is a shortage of skilled tree planting labour in Western Canada. This shortage will be exacerbated as the millions of hectares of dead lodgepole pine forests in British Columbia's Central Interior continue to be harvested in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Mechanized planting provides a possible solution to this problem. This method has been applied successfully in the agriculture sector and attempted in forestry. Presently in Western Canada no commercially viable automated reforestation is taking place. Research into mechanized conifer transplanting techniques introduced thus far show low productivity and high operating expenses. This paper investigates current manual and automated planting methods for seedling planting quality, growth rates and transplanting costs. In order to contribute to design criteria and assess the commercial prospects of mechanized reforestation equipment in British Columbia's Central Interior, estimates of a machine's minimum planting rate, crew size and equipment configuration will be made. From these specification an initial capital investment in equipment is forecast and projections of operating costs determined. --P. ii.