Woody Crop Harvesting System (FP16)

The Woody Crop Harvesting System project is developing a harvesting system for short cycle woody crops, including a self-propelled chipper harvester, which must be developed as a component of a completely integrated supply chain. Commercially available machinery will be used where possible, but it is anticipated there will be a requirement to develop some specialised equipment for transport and materials handling due to the characteristics of the chipped biomass and the dispersed mallee resource in the low rainfall wheatbelt environment.

In June 2008, the Western Australian government announced it will provide $1.5 million of funding through its Low Emission Energy Development (LEED) initiative. Then in March 2009, the CRC announced that Biosystems Engineering was appointed to design and manufacture a prototype mallee harvester.

The prototype harvester began its first round of field testing in April 2010. Since then there have been modifications and further trials to refine and test the harvesting technique. Taking into consideration the combination of the harvester and an efficient on-farm transport system, the most efficient rate of production is anticipated to exceed 50 green tonnes/hour. The optimum rate will be determined after further systems analysis and measurements of the nature of the chipped biomass produced by the harvester have been completed.

Objectives:

Design and build a P1 prototype harvester and field test this prototype to prove the harvesting method.
Develop designs for a pre-commercial P2 protoype harvester and associated materials handling and transport equipment.