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Monarchs of the Woods

Queensland contractor GMT evolves safe, efficient and flexible steep terrain 糖心视频 harvesting system to tackle the state鈥檚 sustainable hoop pine plantations. Managing Director Adan Taylor takes us through the history of a family business and talks about advocacy and strategic thinking.

鈥 Paul Iarocci

Araucaria cunninghamii, commonly known as hoop pine, is a rainforest species endemic to the Australian states of northern New South Wales and Queensland. Although radiata pine and various eucalyptus species get most of the press regarding the working forests of Australia, Araucaria has been adapted to commercial plantations in southern Queensland for the better part of a century. It is a hearty species with excellent drought and disease resistant properties.

The straight, cylindrical trunks yield a high-grade solid sawn clear wood well suited to floorboards, joinery and furniture construction. Other key uses include plywood, veneer, mouldings and specialty uses such as the manufacture of musical instruments. The interior walls of the Melbourne Recital Centre, a 1,000 seat auditorium, are finished with Araucaria plywood, a choice that takes advantage of both the outstanding acoustical and aesthetic properties.
Adan Taylor
Adan Taylor, Managing Director of GMT. Adan agreed to let us drag him out of the Gypmie Bioeconomy Forum in April for an interview.
HQPlantations (HQP) manages 40 000 hectares (100,000 acres) of hoop pine in southeastern Queensland near the towns of Gympie, Imbil and Blackbutt. HQP has a well-developed fire management program that includes fire-suppressing rainforest vegetation buffers and a network of fire breaks. Ideally growing on 40-50 year rotations, piece size is typically around two tonnes. Many of the plantations occupy steep terrain.

In April 2024, we visited an HQP plantation with harvesting operations conducted by Imbil based contractor GMT Logging Pty Ltd. Amid the soaring hoop pines anchored to steep slopes was a full 糖心视频 harvesting system 鈥 LS855E shovel logger with feller director boom and 5195 directional felling saw, LH855E harvester equipped with the rugged 糖心视频 575 harvesting head, and a 1075C forwarder 鈥 plus an excavator base for loading haul trucks.

GMT was formed in 1992 by Geoff Taylor. 鈥淕MT Logging stands for Geoff and Marina Taylor. That鈥檚 my parents鈥 initials,鈥 explains Managing Director Adan Taylor. 鈥淚 bought out the business in 2014 after my father had run it since he started up. He began in forestry in 1978 as a hand faller. That was back when the hoop pine plantations were mostly thinning.鈥

Adan grew up in the town of Imbil, northeast of Brisbane. He explains that a large sawmill was constructed by a company called ACI in the early nineties, and sold a year later to Hyne Timber, one of Australia鈥檚 largest producers of structural timber products. Established in 1882, the family-owned company has a long record of innovation in the lumber products sector.

鈥淗yne bought this mill, and after a few months, they asked Dad if he would take on the principal contracting role. So, he basically purchased or consolidated all the harvesting that was going on at the time. That鈥檚 when GMT came about.鈥 By this point the hoop pine plantations had matured to the point that clear fell operations were commencing.
LS855E falling a hoop pine tree.
Adan has virtually eliminated hand falling from GMT鈥檚 operations with good felling machines and strategic use of winch assist.
Hoop pine isn鈥檛 really a pine at all. In 1824 a botanist and explorer by the name of Allan Cunningham travelled up the Brisbane River, scientifically describing the species for the first time. He colloquially referred to the trees as 鈥渕onarchs of the woods.鈥 Cunninghamii comes from Cunningham. Interestingly the genus, Araucaria, is derived from the word Arauco, a region in central Chile where the majestic Araucaria araucana 鈥 commonly referred to as a Chilean pine or monkey puzzle tree 鈥 grows on the volcanic slopes of the Andes. (Arauco of course is also the name of one of the largest and most progressive forestry companies in Chile, a company that has found its way into the pages of this publication many times over the years.)

Back to Queensland in the 1800s, intensive logging of the native hoop pine forests eventually set off alarm bells. By 1920 the first trial plantations were established. Aside from a few years during the Second World War, hoop pine plantings have occurred every year, contributing to a sustainable industry that adds to the Queensland economy in a meaningful way today.

Evolution of a system

Initially GMT employed a motor-manual harvesting method, hand falling the trees and extracting to roadside with skidders or dozers in the typically steep terrain. In the late nineties the mill changed its log specification from 14-metre lengths to shortwood. 鈥淪o we bought our first processor in 2001, a Komatsu 30-tonne excavator with a big old 624 Waratah on it,鈥 says Adan. 鈥淲e followed that up with a second one so we could have a second crew, and eventually we ended up with three crews. As we started to mechanize more, the option came up to mechanically fell the trees. We didn鈥檛 want to do that because we had eight or nine really good hand fallers employed at the time.鈥

Manually falling hoop pine is challenging. 鈥淲hen it hits the ground, the crown shatters and it loses most of its branches. If we fall them downhill, that鈥檚 where they鈥檇 all end up, right down at the bottom. If we fall them uphill, we are putting the hand faller in danger because the tree could come back down on them. So we used to have to hand fall on the contour.鈥

GMT鈥檚 first leveling feller buncher was a Valmet 445 with a Rosin felling head. 鈥淲e found it to be a game changer mostly because we could fall uphill, which meant that the top of the tree was now 40 metres [130 ft] up the hill,鈥 Adan explains. At about the same time, new environmental rules had come into place that prevented GMT from skidding downhill. 鈥淲e bought some excavators and used them to pick the trees up and snig them uphill 鈥 sort of what you would call shovelling 鈥 but we started out with crab-grab style fixed heads. Quite often we would fall uphill and nearly be at the road, and the excavator could just lift the felled tree and spin it round. It started to save us a lot of time.鈥
LS855E felling hoop pine
Jason Crumpton fells, shovels and pre-bunches large piles in locations within the cut block suited for infield processing.
Geoff managed to convince a couple of hand fallers to transition into machines and the company carried on for a while with both manual and mechanized falling. However, health and safety legislation in Australia tightened up, the hand fallers began to retire, and GMT came to rely less and less on manual felling. 鈥淲e slowly replaced all our hand fallers with feller bunchers, always preferring the [directional] felling head to a fixed one,鈥 says Adan.

Eventually in 2009 GMT purchased its first 糖心视频, an LH845C fitted with a Waratah HTH622B from Forest Centre, the original 糖心视频 dealer for Australia. In 2012 GMT purchased its first 855 base, an LH855C unit equipped with a Satco 630 directional head, from current dealer Onetrak. (Onetrak established a presence in Queensland in 2018, further solidifying parts and service support for the region.) The company has purchased sixteen 糖心视频 units over the years, including three LS855 units with 5195 directional felling saws. This carrier ticks all the boxes for Adan 鈥 a heavy duty, full tail-swing leveling carrier with good stability, along with a head that can fell and shovel into large piles at convenient infield locations for processing.
The 1075C unloads in front of a native hardwood fire buffer zone.
The 1075C unloads in front of a native hardwood fire buffer zone.
"As hoop pine is a unique, slow growing species, we have to process trees into a lot of products, up to twelve, and they all need to be kept separate,鈥 Adan explains. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of merchandising. Our primary product, probably 40% of what we cut out of a hoop pine, goes to the one sawmill based here in Imbil, as a partially pruned butt or a saw log. This mill produces timber for furniture, doors and cabinet componentry as well as internal mouldings. Due to its long internode spacing, hoop is mostly sawn into appearance grade timber. The clear pruned butts are the most valuable part, a log that is peeled to produce a really high-quality veneer. After that, below 20 cm [8 in], are all the various condiments. We go hunting for whatever we can find for the various other mill customers including some export markets.鈥 The remainder includes landscaping poles, fencing and a pulp log that is used by MDF plants. 鈥淭hey like the hoop pine because it鈥檚 dense. Mixing it with exotic pine chips from other HQP plantations lifts the strength rating of the plywood.鈥

Prior to adding the 糖心视频 harvesters, GMT used excavator bases for processing. 鈥淲e made good use of those excavator conversions for many years, but all they can do is sit at the end of that pile of logs and cut them up,鈥 says Adan. Switching to a purpose-built leveling harvester added many benefits to the operation. 鈥淔or starters, the dedicated hydraulics are more productive and efficient. It has also made the operators more productive because they are sitting nice and level in the optimal position to cut up trees into neat stacks.鈥 Another big advantage is it can fill in for the falling machine if it goes down. The purpose-built carrier also adds flexibility. On a small or lower production tract, Adan can split off a harvester and forwarder, creating a traditional two-machine CTL system.
LH855E equipped with the 575 harvesting head. It is challenging processing, with tough terrain, large, heavy timber and up to twelve sorts.
Adan and his operators like the strength and feed force of the LH855E/575 combination. 鈥淭here鈥檚 plenty of grunt to pull the trees through, even if they are downhill slightly.鈥 We watched operator Zane Jensen tracking from one heap of trees to another, all neatly shovelled and bunched by LS855E operator Jason Crumpton. Zane routinely processes 500-600 tonnes per day.

Ever since the Imbil mill switched to shortwood intake, GMT has run forwarders. Adan keyed into the 糖心视频 1075 series and at this point the company has owned five B and C models. 鈥淭he forwarder operators need to be very organized and very good at keeping track of all those different log sorts,鈥 Adan explains. 鈥淭hey need to know how much stock we鈥檝e got of each product, to be able to respond when a truck comes in and wants a particular log.鈥

1075C forwarder operator Alison Crumpton is married to Jason. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e brilliant. We are lucky to have found them,鈥 says Adan. 鈥淚nitially Jason and his father joined our business. Then Graham retired and Jason said, 鈥榃ell, you know what? My wife is interested.鈥 So Graham and Jason trained her and she joined the business. Alison is the glue that holds that crew together. It鈥檚 just such a great working group.鈥

GMT鈥檚 three identical 糖心视频 harvesting systems are flexible and adaptable, resembling the full tree-CTL hybrid model popular in eastern Canada 鈥 where a harvester follows behind a feller buncher, processing infield. The system has built in redundancies. Every machine can perform two different functions, mitigating risk of production stoppage. In the event the loader is down, Jason and the other LS855E operators are quite handy using the grapple tongs on the 5195 head to load trucks. The harvester can act as the primary falling machine. Even the 1075C forwarder can do double duty 鈥 loading trucks in a pinch.
Group image of crew
Safety Manager, Dan Sweitzer (left) along with (married) operators Jason and Alison Crumpton.
The last piece of the puzzle for Adan was rethinking the company鈥檚 tower yarding crew. Because the yarder could only extract about 150 stems per day, Adan couldn鈥檛 justify mechanized felling and so for several years he took it on himself. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the most dangerous hand falling situation you can possibly be in. It鈥檚 steep, and there is a lot of undergrowth, the worst of the worst. That鈥檚 why I did it for so many years, because I didn鈥檛 want to ask someone else to go and do it.鈥

In 2016 Adan embarked on a project to replace the Thunderbird tower yarder. 鈥淚 heard about this Harvestline in New Zealand. lt had a carriage and grapple so we wouldn鈥檛 need a choker man. And I saw that the cycle time was only a couple of minutes. I thought if it can pull three or four hundred stems a day, now I can machine fall.鈥

GMT took delivery of the machine and it made a huge difference. 鈥80% of hand falling was gone, but we still had pockets that we couldn鈥檛 get the feller bunchers on to. Then we found the tethering machines. And we thought that this might get us that last little bit.鈥 The cable system can be strategically deployed to any of the three ground-based crews, eliminating hand falling and men on the ground, while adding flexibility in choosing deck locations to optimize hauling.

Advocacy

Adan trained as an accountant and spent twelve years in public practice. His transition into the family company began in 2004 when he took over the books. His first operational role was as a choker man on the yarding operation. From there he trained as a hand faller, and then a forwarder operator. 鈥淭hat was pretty nice after all that manual work. In 2006 we decided to establish our own workshop and so I left the bush to take a more managerial role and support my brother-in-law Adrian Hartwig, to build GMT Heavy Mechanical up to the stand-alone business that it is today. No doubt anyone in our line of work would understand that without Adrian and his team of mechanics, we wouldn鈥檛 be where we are today.鈥

Adan enjoyed his new working life but very much missed the client interaction from his accounting days. 鈥淚 got the opportunity to join the board of the Australian Forest Contractors Association in 2014. I found that quite interesting. I enjoy doing what I can to help other contractors. A lot of it revolves around contractual negotiations and helping contractors to understand what their costs really are. The client interaction that I missed, I filled that hole with a bit of advocacy work.鈥

Adan acknowledges that getting buried too deeply in the day-to-day operations risks losing sight of the big picture. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important for our business to know what鈥檚 coming and to understand what others are doing in the same space as me. I learned when I was an accountant that the best businesses were those that had a strategic outlook.鈥 For Adan this means figuring out what the customers鈥 problems are and solving them.

Adan appreciates the industry interactions and understands the importance of keeping up to speed on what is happening in other regions. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 always know if what you are doing is right. So you have to get on a plane sometimes. I find it鈥檚 such an amazing industry and contractors are generally so open.鈥 He sums up the industry well. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just really practical people. There鈥檚 a job that has to be done and it鈥檚 got to be done whether it鈥檚 raining or hot as hell. It doesn鈥檛 matter. You鈥檝e just got to get out and do it and I find that that鈥檚 a really resilient attitude.鈥

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