Bailey’s has delivered a customized Ponsse forwarder with a BRUKS chipper that will be used to help supply a pellet plant with raw material.

The Ponsse Buffalo King forwarder has an extended chassis with a BRUKS 806.3 mobile chipper mounted on it. The project to combine the two machines, involving two Ponsse dealerships, was completed for Tuolumne BioEnergy, which is developing a new pellet plant in Sonora, California, that will produce premium wood pellets for the domestic home heating market.

The machine will help utilize forest residual materials. It will be used to pick up and chip debris from logging operations and similar material, helping to reduce fuels and mitigate fires.

Tuolumne BioEnergy, which is developing the pellet plant with the aid of a grant, ordered the Ponsse forwarder to be equipped with a chipper from BRUKS, a Swedish manufacturer. The chippers are custom made, according to Jim Haas, industrial sales manager for Bailey’s, and took about a year to arrive.

While unusual in North America, mounting a chipper on a forwarder is “fairly common” in Europe and Scandinavian countries, noted Haas. He knows of two such machines operating in the U.S., one in California and another in Colorado. “Not too many people design chippers for going on a forwarder like that,” added Haas.

The project involved two Ponsse dealerships, Bailey’s and PacWest Machinery. Tuolumne BioEnergy ordered the equipment from Ponsse’s North American headquarters in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. At the time, Ponsse had service operations in Coburg, Oregon, but in 2023 it sold those operations to PacWest Machinery, naming the dealership its representative for sales and service of Ponsse equipment in Oregon Washington, and Idaho. Ponsse appointed Bailey’s as its dealer to represent it in California and Nevada last year.

The forwarder and chipper were shipped together. At PacWest Machinery, the bunks were removed from the forwarder, and the chipper was bolted on with special clamps. BRUKS factory technicians assisted. The forwarder was transported to Bailey’s for final installation, with assistance again from BRUKS personnel. Tuolumne BioEnergy is expected to put the equipment into operation in mid-summer. Bailey’s will service the machine.

The Ponsse-BRUKS combination will be used to go into the woods and process piles of logging slash, hazard tree debris, and other wood debris into chips. “It reduces fuel on the forest floor after logging,” said Haas.

The forwarder’s boom will be used to pick up material and feed it to the chipper. It has a bin to store the chips. When the bin is full, the forwarder can travel to a chip van, and the bin lifts to dump its load into the trailer.

Another benefit of the forwarder is that it can travel on a paved road, noted Haas. “The long-term strategy is it could be replicated elsewhere.”

The Ponsse Buffalo King is the largest machine in the Buffalo series of forwarders. It can carry nearly 20 tons. The BRUKS chipper is powered by a 500 hp Scania diesel engine and can process material up to 24 inches in diameter.

Bailey’s industrial machinery division is a representative for a number of other brands of commercial equipment for logging and forestry, tree care, and landscaping. Brands include ALBACH whole tree chippers, Fallbach tree cutting cranes, DYNA firewood processors, Neuson harvesters, Rotobec grapples, and more.

Tuolumne BioEnergy will produce premium wood fuel pellets produced from forest feedstock that would otherwise go to waste. The plant will process unmerchantable material, reducing hazardous fuels and improving forest health. The company’s products will be sold to retail, commercial and industrial markets in the U.S.

The plant is expected to employ about 25 people and to be operational in the summer.

Tuolumne BioEnergy is developing the plant with the aid of funding from the Biomass Utilization Fund. The fund was established by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and the California Department of Housing and Community Development. It was allocated $17 million in federal funds to help finance new or expanding businesses in Tuolumne County that can use available forest biomass and provide an alternative to pile burning of forest waste.