Abstract

ROBERT, Renato Cesar Gonçalves; BROWN, Rafael Oliveira  and  RUY, Camila Castillo. Economic analysis of the mechanized harvesting of Eucalyptus spp. in mountainous sites. Madera bosques [online]. 2018, vol.24, n.3, e2431621.  Epub Dec 18, 2018. ISSN 2448-7597.  https://doi.org/10.21829/myb.2018.2431621.

The progress of mechanization in the forest harvest has reinforced the competitiveness of the production sector in Brazil, although the use of machines in sloping areas is a technical and operational challenge for equipment engineering. This work aims to evaluate the operational and production costs of harvester 911.3 X3M and forwarder 860.4 with auxiliary traction crane in mountainous areas and to analyze the influence of each variable on costs. The data are from areas of eucalyptus repopulation in Minas Gerais. A production cost of USD 4.59 m-³ was observed for the harvester. The forwarder presented a cost of production of USD 2.75 m-³. It is concluded that these machines can operate in mountainous situations with costs equivalent to those of other machines, without significant losses of productivity with the increase of the slope. In addition, the acquisition value of the equipment was the variable that most influenced the operational cost and that the newer the machine, the greater the influence of the price of the fuel, while the more used, the more influence maintenance costs and repairs.

Keywords : operating cost; cost of production; slope; Eucalyptus spp.