Following the first coppicing the trees are harvested every 3 years for 6 cycles.
The poplar trees are harvested with a forage harvester and forage wagons are towed alongside the harvest to collect the chips.
The chips are loaded into a chip van using a silage blower and transported to the biorefinery.
The poplar chips are assumed to be transported a distance of 100 km to the refinery via a chip van.
This is a likely maximum economic transport distance.
No storage of the poplar biomass is needed at the tree farm or biorefinery as the trees will be harvested year round, following a just-in-time harvest management scheme.