An assessment of the harvesting and fuel performance of a single-pass cut-and-chip harvester in commercial-scale short-rotation poplar crops as influenced by crop and weather conditions

Abstract There is a need for data on commercial-scale harvesting operations in hybrid poplar short rotation crops to better understand costs and logistics, especially for modeling large scale biorefineries. An investigation was conducted on the in-field performance of a single-pass cut-and-chip harvester operating in commercial fields for over 370 individual wagon loads representing a range of crop and field conditions. Mean material capacity peaked at 70 Mg h−1 in dry conditions in lower biomass (