This piece is an extract from our A View from the Forest (previously Forestry Features) newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Wednesday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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FORESTRY is nothing without innovation, and, in recent years, there is a feeling that many manufacturers are trying desperately to stumble upon the next great idea. 

Whether it's Komatsu's Centipede forwarder prototype, Eco Log's G-series of pendulum harvesters, or even ProSilva's J20 'tilting forwarder', these are the machines you remember, the ones that stand out from the crowd.

Some of these are new concepts. Some build on already established designs. Some will last. Some won't. Some will one day appear in your social media feed (probably shared from FJ's archive) and have you wondering what might have been. 

But that's the great thing about forestry's innovators; they are never perturbed, even if their blueprint is thrown in the bin. 

This has come to mind a lot recently, thrust into the spotlight by exhibition season and a feature my colleague John McNee penned in July's edition. 

During a trip to Finland for the unveiling of John Deere's new H Series, he was treated to a tour of the Finnish Forestry Museum in Lusto, barely a stone's throw from the Russian border. 

A treasure trove of forestry delights, perhaps the exhibit's star attraction is the Plusjack walking harvester. Developed in 1999 by Plustech, Timberjack’s R&D unit (now part of the John Deere Group), the Plusjack harvester was ahead of its time in the early 1990s, and never went into production.

While it was never put into production, many of the features found on Plusjack's walking harvester now exist on modern machineryWhile it was never put into production, many of the features found on Plusjack's walking harvester now exist on modern machinery (Image: FJ)

The prototype, however, clearly demonstrates the benefits of operating a machine without wheels. The eco-friendly harvester can operate on steep and uneven terrain, move in all directions and turn on the spot, and it does not leave any tracks on the ground.

“This was the first purpose-built walking harvester," explained Timo Neuvonen, who was involved in the machine's creation.

"The idea was that this would be suitable for steep slopes without the risk of errors and harm of continuous tracks."

While the machine was never put into full production – a decision made when John Deere purchased Timberjack – it was far from time wasted, as Timo explained: “A lot of the technology used in its development, a lot of those ideas, are used now in modern forest machines.”

As the Plusjack example shows, we forever owe a debt to forestry's innovations. Even if we don't realise it at the time.