The central claims of pienuratekniikka – higher total yield over the rotation period, less harvesting damage, competitive costs – are measurable. So they are being measured. This page collects the research on the method: what is being examined, how, and what the results show.
Thesis research: the effect of pienuratekniikka on wood production
Milutin Krivokapic, a forestry educator at Hyria (a Finnish vocational education provider), is studying thinning carried out with a compact forest machine in his thesis. The work is a harvesting productivity study combined with an assessment of harvesting quality, with measurement data collected from two harvesting areas.
In the study design, the thinning was done with pienuratekniikka: the harvester and the forwarder (Alstor 850H and 850) moved along the same narrow trails, spaced roughly 10 metres apart. The spacing follows from the machines' crane reach of just over five metres. The timber was cut into three-metre pulpwood.
The thesis examines the effect of pienuratekniikka on the stand's wood production over the entire rotation period – including whether the increase in growing stock outweighs the expectedly higher cost of the first thinning.
Preliminary observations (Koneviesti magazine, 1/2026)
Trails of roughly 2.5–3 metres in width had very little effect on the remaining stand and did not significantly reduce the number of remaining trees, even though the best-quality stems were selected as crop trees. The researcher also noted that existing research on the true growing-area effect of strip-road width is old, and based on different road widths and spacings than those used today.
Results
The thesis is being written and no results have been published yet. They will be added to this page once published.
Comparative harvesting study: compact machine versus full-size machine
Harvesting with a compact forest machine is also being examined in a study design where one half of the same stand is harvested with a compact machine and the other half with a conventional full-size machine chain. This gives productivity, costs and harvesting quality a direct benchmark from the same site – same terrain, same stand, two harvesting methods. The assessment covers productivity, harvesting costs, harvesting damage, and the silvicultural and wood-production perspective.
Results
The study has not been published yet. Results will be added to this page once they are public.
Why independent measurement is what matters
Those developing the method and manufacturing the machinery have a natural interest in its success – which is exactly why the claims are worth only as much as external measurement and published results. We will collect the results on this page as they are published, regardless of what they show.