Montreathmont Cultivation Experiment 1969
Photographs courtesy of John Keenleyside, Forres. (Click PDF button for 9 more photographs)
The above image is of a Fowler Challenger 33 tracked machine wading through a sea of mud as it circuits around the cultivation experiment site. The registration No is PLL396E and was on loan from the Civil Engineering Section where it was used frequently for ripping rock and piling up the material for transporting away to build forest roads. Unfortunately the FC Number of the machine is not seen.
Other machines used in the experiment and seen in the attached PDF is an International BTD8 with Registration Number ULM258F but again the FC Number is not seen; a private International tracked tractor conversion to a Wain Roy (or Wayne Roy) back acting digger and also a private tracked Poclain excavator with a small V bucket.
The experiment set up at Montreathmont Forest, near Edzell was one of the early experiments to test effectiveness of different machine cultivation techniques on previously forested sites which consisted of hard packed leached soils with a shallow covering of peat (also those with iron pan layers also restricting tree root growth). From the photographs in the PDF the first one shows the felled site which appears to have been planted with pine. The hope in those early days that following significant site cultivation, the site would grow a more productive crop of good quality Sitka spruce. The next four photographs show the BTD 8 with a normal mounted tine (single mouldboard depth 45cms with tine to 60cms) manfully struggling with the stumps but managing to do complete ploughing on part of the site. The next shot is a measuring stick graduated in inches showing depth of one of the ploughing treatments. Following this are 5 shots of the Challenger travelling around the site with a single modified ripper blade possibly getting down to depth of around 30 inches. In the last three photographs before the excavators, a special plough can be seen mounted onto the large cross beam on the back of the Challenger. This again was a single furrow tine but designed to go down to 60cms with its mouldboard and 90cms with the tine.
The Wain Roy machine was probably one of the earliest trials of an excavator based draining machine in forest restocking and the same can be said for the Poclain. The interesting point is the last photograph which shows drains 15 feet apart where all the drain spoil has been spread on the platform in between by the excavators.
Can anyone name any of the drivers and recall any stories about the machines or the experiments?
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Other Vehicles and Machines, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines
File Montreathmont Expt. 1
Setting the Scene for Montreathmont Expt 1 P 69.
This forest was mainly heathland planted with Scots Pine with little or no ground prep.
These crops were Yield Class 8-10, they were reaching a critical height and windblow was starting. The produce from these crops was low value for pulp / /board manufacture.
Pockets of S.S. planted at the same time were Yield Class 14-18 and produced a higher percentage of saw logs with much higher value
Land was getting scarcer and more expensive due to the emerging activities of the large forestry companies.
The F.C. realised that productivity could be increased on the land they held by more intensive cultivation, nutrition and the use of mixtures which had been proved to be beneficial on heathland sites.
Advances in the use of hydraulics had made mechanised drainage more efficient and
at a more reasonable cost.
The factors mentioned above led to the development of the S60-T90 plough by the F.C.(George Taylor Project leader) and initially Clarks of Parkgate Dumfries.
Additional information to that on Web site.
Para 2 A brand new international BTD8 F.C. machine (no number yet allocated at this point) with Wain Roy Backacter digger. The Poclain excavator belonged to George Milton of Keith with a small V bucket, this machine coped better with the stumps than the Wain Roy and had been used on other re-stocking expts. in the Huntly area.
Para 3 Montreathmont Forest was South of Brechin on the Arbroath road.
The felled site was planted with Scots Pine and beaten up with a small proportion of inland L.P.
The S60-T90 started off as a single ripper blade that penetrated 80-90cm. The trouble with it was the 'A' frame on the Challenger had difficulty lifting the ripper high enough to clear uprooted stumps and produced little in the way of a planting position. A mould board was added and plough mounting converted to fit a main plough beam on an International Tractor.
Page2 para 5
The Wain Roy machine was the first of the excavator machines and I think the only one purchased by the F.C.
The Poclain machine owned and operated by G. Milton of Keith was a much more robust machine and better able to cope with the conditions on Re-stock and windblown sites..
The last photo in PDF shows a practice developed from an old agricultural practice called Riggs and Furrows common on upland holdings in Yorkshire, crofting parts of Scotland and potato growing parts of Ireland.
This plot at Montreathmont was meant to demonstrate the ultimate in ground prep. First applied by John Weatherel on the North Yorks Moors. At Montreathmont it was a single un-replicated plot adjacent to the main replicated expt. and should now be standing with a fine crop of S.S. with a high saw log content. Can anyone confirm?
Comment left on 03 October 2014 at 20:58 by Norman Davidson