You would need trai­ned eyes to see that Mag­nus Berg was ope­ra­ting a mac­hine that con­tai­ned many sec­rets. He was actually test dri­ving the new PONSSE Scor­pion Giant. That it was making its first appea­rance in Swe­den and was only the fourth such mac­hine off the pro­duc­tion line furt­her rein­forces the sense of being a pio­neer.

For Berg, the encoun­ter with the PONSSE Scor­pion Giant was as exci­ting an expe­rience as it was enjo­y­able. He had been curious about the Scor­pion, but as fel­ling work usually invol­ves dense forests, he wan­ted a mac­hine equip­ped with the power­ful PONSSE H8 har­ves­ter head.

Exci­ting com­bi­na­tion

“The Scor­pion Giant har­ves­ter model with the H8 har­ves­ter head soun­ded like an exci­ting com­bi­na­tion to me. I had pre­viously dri­ven a PONSSE Ergo har­ves­ter that also had an H8 har­ves­ter head. In a way, I had to ret­hink the way I drove, but I soon got the hang of it. The new mac­hine meant I was able to get clo­ser to the trees, which I now feel is a posi­tive,” he says.

His com­pany, Uggle­reds Skog­sav­verk­ning AB, is based in Tim­mele near Ulrice­hamn in Väs­ter­göt­land, Swe­den. Their big­gest cus­to­mer is Södra, for whom they per­form jobs in and around Ulrice­hamn. Berg took over the com­pany reins in 2004 from his fat­her Stig Berg, who had foun­ded the com­pany. Prior to that, they had wor­ked toget­her for many years.

“I joi­ned the com­pany in 1986 and have been doing final fel­ling ever since. My first mac­hine had a two-grip,” says Berg, who took over the com­pany in 2004.

Back then, 20 years ago, Stig Berg did a great deal of truck dri­ving, so forwar­ding was done by an emplo­yee. The com­pany was one of the first to use a mac­hine trans­por­ter cal­led a Dun­der­bygge, which was used exten­si­vely to trans­port both their own mac­hi­nes and those of other com­pa­nies.

Ente­ring the fore­stry busi­ness was not writ­ten in the stars for Mag­nus Berg, howe­ver.

“I was ori­gi­nally keen on far­ming, but thanks to Dad’s com­pany, it became fore­stry ins­tead. I’ve had no regrets.”

Our jobs have always been around Ulrice­hamn. For a while, the com­pany had two mac­hine groups, but now there is just one mac­hine group, plus a forwar­der, all from Ponsse. Our first mac­hine from the Fin­nish manu­fac­tu­rer was a PONSSE HS 15 with one-grip and an H60 aggre­gate, which arri­ved in Ulrice­hamn in 1994, the same year that the Swe­dish sub­si­diary Ponsse AB was for­med. Next was a HS 16 har­ves­ter with a H73 aggre­gate. Since then, every har­ves­ter has come from the same manu­fac­tu­rer.

Added value with Active Care ser­vice

The com­pany cur­rently has two PONSSE forwar­ders, a Bison and a Buf­falo. The PONSSE Bison, which is the big­ger of the two, does the forwar­ding after trees are har­ves­ted. The PONSSE Buf­falo is not only an addi­tio­nal resource after the har­ves­ter, it also takes care of branc­hes and other tasks. The two forwar­ders are dri­ven by Jes­per Sun­din and Tony Bengts­son.

Berg isn’t only a fan of the mac­hi­nes. He’s also plea­sed with the after sales ser­vice.

“You natu­rally get to know both the mac­hi­nes and tech­nical sup­port ser­vices. It’s abso­lu­tely vital that after­sa­les ser­vices work, and we have happy expe­riences here.”

Berg has opted for a PONSSE Active Care ser­vice agree­ment.

“It’s very flexible. It means I know that the mac­hi­nes are in pro­per wor­king order, and I can take time off with a clear conscience. Anot­her advan­tage, of course, is that the Ponsse ser­vice orga­ni­sa­tion knows all about our mac­hi­nes and their his­tory.”

Apprecia­tion of free­dom

Each mac­hine ope­ra­tor has their “own” mac­hine, which works well.

“This means we can all struc­ture our own work in the way that suits each of us best. After all, we are all dif­fe­rent with dif­fe­rent needs to think about to ensure we each achieve the right work-life balance.”

The com­pany still has its own trai­ler, which makes life easier when moving mac­hi­nes around. And if time per­mits, they also accept trans­port jobs from other com­pa­nies.

Berg desc­ri­bes him­self as a forest geek. Out­side his work as a har­ves­ter dri­ver, he likes to hunt and take care of his own wood­land.

“If truth be told, I pro­bably spend 350 days of the year in the forest,” he says with a con­ten­ted smile.