%0 Research article
%T A techno-economic evaluation of Bracke and M-planter tree planting devices
%A Rantala, Juho
%A Harstela, Pertti
%A Saarinen, Veli-Matti
%A Tervo, Leo
%D 2009
%J Silva Fennica
%V 43
%N 4
%R doi:10.14214/sf.186
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/186
%X Techno-economically reasonable mechanization of tree planting has proved  to be a difficult task in the Nordic working conditions. Although  planting machines and combinations of base machine and planting device  have been developed since the 1970s, mechanized planting has not been  cost-competitive to manual planting. The aim of this study was to find  out work time distributions, productivities, costs and effects of  different work difficulty factors on productivities and costs of the  state-of-the-art Nordic planting devices, Swedish Bracke and Finnish  M-Planter, and to compare the devices with each other. The theory of  comparative time studies was the base for the experimental design of  this study. In the average working conditions, productivity (E15) of  M-Planter (236 seedlings/hour) was 36.0% higher than that of Bracke (174  seedlings/hour). Here, M-Planter performed planting work 23.4% cheaper  than Bracke. However, the difference depended greatly on the working  conditions; the more stones or stumps the smaller the difference, and  the more slash the bigger the difference.