Q & A with Assistant Harvesting Manager Justin Adamson

We interviewed Justin Adamson, Assistant Harvesting Manager, Scotland to find out what it is like to be part of our Harvesting Team.

Q. When did you join Tilhill Forestry?

A. I was fortunate enough to be selected to join Tilhill’s graduate program as an Assistant Harvesting Manager in 2014.

I was studying forestry at the Scottish School of Forestry in Inverness. It required, as part of the HND, to do a year’s placement that I spent on a fantastic estate near Forres called Moray Estate. The head forester got me stuck right in assisting the forestry team on their daily routines (planting, spraying, weeding, measuring and felling timber). I was able to stay on part time after my placement and secured additional work measuring standing timber with a neighbouring estates forestry company whilst I finished my studies.

Q. Tell us about your team members and how have you have found their guidance?

A. The team I work with consists of Peter Bowsher and Iain McMurtrie. They both have valuable skills and experience that allows our area to work well.

Q. What have you learnt this past year?

“The past year has had its challenges, and lots of new ideas are being utilised and trialled.”

A. It has been good to see One Note adopted by the company as a way to monitor and record site diaries and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. We are looking at RTFI (Real Time Forestry Intelligence) in the Galloway area which allows us to monitor the progress of sites more effectively which should see better time management in the long run.

I have been trialling the Treemetrics timber measuring application which will allow us to monitor tree data from a young age (10 years onwards). When the time comes to harvest timber we will have data collected over the 40 – 50 years allowing for a better estimation on timber yield. It will be a valuable tool for the forest managers too as it will help with forest inventory which will in turn help with forecasting.

Q. Have you had any challenging contracts recently and how did you overcome the challenges?

A. At the beginning of the year we secured a 32,000 tonne project which required felling trees in some steeper areas. It would possibly have required a Skyline in order for us to carry out the job but our contractor was able to purchase a T-Winch to work the steeper ground. As the T-winch is a relatively new machine to the UK, little is known on how the machine would have performed here with the varied terrain. As this project is coming to an end, the T-Winch has done very well and exceeded expectations.