Innovative flotation tracks are to be used to help remove around 40 acres of Sitka spruce from peat bogs in the Yorkshire Dales.
The process involves the harvesting of the trees intact, which are then baled by a John Deere specialist baling head, cut into lengths of 3-6m and forwarded across the terrain.
This will allow UPM Tilhill, the contractor removing the trees, to create tracks to give it access to the five pockets of growth on Malham Moor with heavy machinery.
The movement of the harvesting equipment on the bales will then depress them further into the peat bogs, allowing them to “recolonise with the natural vegetation of the fell”.
The process will allow the trees to be felled without the need to extract them from the moor, as well as helping preserve the peat, according to the National Trust.
