Farming Simulator 19: Wood harvesting Farming Simulator 19 Guide and Tips

In Farming Simulator 19, the player can earn money by selling trees: wholesome, a few meter parts, as firewood, or as wood chips. Below you'll find a walkthrough for the process of harvesting wood.

Farming Simulator 19 enables the player to cut down every tree found on his land - the money spent on more forest-dense plots can even return to you if you cut down and sell the wood found on them. You can also grow trees and poplars on your field, with poplars being the only source of wood chips.

• Felling of irregular leafy trees
• "Straight" trees
• Getting rid of trunks
• Woodchips
• Planting trees

Felling of irregular leafy trees

Irregular deciduous trees cannot be harvested in an automated way.

The worst type of the tree, found in abundance in Ravenport. Thanks to their irregular shapes they cannot be harvested in an automated way. You're left with three options:

1. cut the trees into smaller pieces and load them using a loader or a loader with a crane,
2. cut the trees into firewood and load manually onto any trailer (surprisingly, you'll earn a lot of money for this type of material)
3. Use a wood chip machine to process all wood and drive the wood chips to a lumber mill.
4. Additionally: you can attempt to cut down the whole tree, get rid of the biggest branches, and transport it to the lumber mill using a tractor. If you only need to get rid of the tree, consider doing so. If you want to earn money, this is the least worthwhile way.

"Straight" trees

Coniferous trees and some types of deciduous trees can grow as perfectly straight trees. These trees shouldn't be cut into smaller pieces - you'll earn more money for longer pieces.

Straight and high trees do not have a lot of branches - you'll receive straight bales that are easy to load.

Your approach - whether to sell whole trees or cut them down into smaller pieces - mainly depends on your current equipment...

Cheap machines used in forestry.

A loader-trailer Stepa FHL 13 AK is a convenient and cheap option for the beginning. Cut trees into smaller pieces and load them onto a trailer and transport them to a shopping point. Thanks to the gripper, the loading process is much easier than with a loader. Recommended bale size: 4 meters.

Fliegl Timber Runner requires a saddle (a truck or a tractor). This is definitely the fastest way of acquiring and selling trees - this is the only vehicle that enables the player to transport 8 meter bales.

Consider placing yourself perpendicularly to the bale so it is closer to the back of the vehicle.

You can use any loader to load the trees onto the trailers: front loaders, even those used with a tractor, telehandlers, or skid steer loaders. Every model offers a crane that can load timber. Nevertheless, take notice that loading whole trees can be a problem in case of small and light vehicles - they will be overloaded by the held timber.

The next step is buying a Harvester - machines that can cut and divide trees into pieces of certain size. Look at the picture above. The difference between the cheapest and the most expensive machine (Sampo Rosenlew vs. Komatsu / Ponsse) is the fact that the small vehicle (Sampo Rosenlew) cannot cut the biggest trees and can divide it only into 6 meter bales, while bigger vehicles can divide the timber into 8 meter bales. Always cut the trees into bales that are easy to load.

Trucks suitable to transport timber.

Aside from the aforementioned trailers, you can utilize vehicles that are customized to handle large bales, and have an autonomous gripper. MAN TGX can carry 6 meter bales. The remaining models offer better maneuverability, but their recommended bale size is 4-5 meters.

1. Remember that all trees - whole or in pieces - have to be cleaned out from branches. Otherwise you'll receive much less money for them.

Skid steer loaders.

For smaller trees, especially those planted on your field, which haven't grown to their full size, you can use a cheaper option: skid steer loaders. DFM CFB-16 can cut down and deliver the tree to the trailer. It also has a handy gripper with extended width and a tool to get rid of the trunks (cheaper than the model attached to a tractor).

During transport, use belts. They keep the cargo in place. All machines dedicated to transporting timber have belts. Remember that you need to apply more than one belt.

Getting rid of trunks

To get rid of the trunks of the cut down trees, buy FSI ST 65 T (Forestry machines tab). A similar device is an add-on to skid steer loader. Activate the tool, lower it down and start cutting the trunk - if you were successful, shavings will start to fly. If they are not flying, re-set the device. A removed tree trunk disappears - don't expect any benefits or a cash reward - the tree trunks are removed only so they don't block your vehicles.

Woodchips

You can place trees directly into the machine selling woodchips in the lumber mill.

Woodchips can be acquired from any trees, bigger or smaller, or from branches. Simply buy a machine:

1. JENZ BA 725 - Isn't powered by the tractor, has a long belt to load wood pieces. Works well with smaller pieces of wood and average bales.
2. JENZ HEM 583 Z. - Powered by the tractor, has its own jib with a grabber and a small hole to load the wood - dedicated to average bales.
3. JENZ HE 700 StA - This machine is found in Objects tab in the shop. Place it in any location on your land. The machine works all the time, it's big and has a convenient hole and a belt to load the wood with. Advantages? The woodchips are automatically sold in the lumber mill; you don't need to transport them. Disadvantages? Upkeep costs 100$ per day.

Woodchips can be transported in almost any trailer. Remember that the price of woodchips changes dynamically??Standard price (on medium difficulty level) is 180$ (+30% on easy/-50% on hard). Remember that woodchips' selling spot is located at the back of the lumber mill - you simply tip your load onto a heap of woodchips.

Planting trees

Private forest - because why not?

You can use Damcon PL-75 (Forestry machines) to plant trees on your field, provided you buy special tree seedlings. Time it takes the trees to fully grow is a week, so it is a long-distance investment. One stillage of trees only have 20 seedlings. The trees can be planted on any unprocessed fragment of the field (it is recommended to do so on pre-made fields in the locations where you won't be cultivating earth). By default, the distance between seedlings is around 5 meters. The trees do not require fertilizing.

Summary and profitability

You can also use a smaller trailer and load bales directly to it.

As can be seen on the comparison below, the length of the bales is important. To get as much money as possible from selling wood, buy a large trailer for transporting wood e.g. Fliegl Timber Runner, a reliable loader (e.g. wheel loader) and a large harvester Komatsu / Ponsse. The comparison was made using planted trees with their full growth (20m).

1. Whole tree - 1200-1300$.
2. 1 meter bales - 1800$, - regular, 1 meter bales can be loaded using your hands
3. 2 meter bales - 1900$, - As above, but you won't be able to carry larger bales
4. 3 meter bales - 2500$,
5. 4 meter bales - 3000$ - minimum bale size if you are looking to earn
6. 6 meter bales - 3350$,
7. 8 meter bales - 3450$,
8. woodchips - around 1200$ - remember that market price of woodchips fluctuates

Trees have to be cleaned out before selling! A tree part sells for 1000$, uncleaned part yields half of it.

1. The fastest way involves using a harvester (Sampo Rosenlew) and selling cut down trees as woodchips in JENZ HE 700 StA (an object which sells woodchips to the lumber mill). If the placement is good, you can throw 1 meter bales straight to the machine's belt without needing a loader.
2. A different method, requiring even more money and the need of money from cutting down trees: buy a field that has a lumber mill nearby and prepare small fields all around it that will be used to plant trees. Now you can use your Harvester to carry whole trees to the lumber mill and cut them down into 8 meter bales without having to drive the wood using trailers.

You can load small parts of trees (1 meter parts of planted trees, or smaller pieces in case of irregular trees) manually.