When FT are harvested in a structured manner, and terrain is easily accessible, it is possible to use terrain-going chippers. These are commonly built on a standard forwarder chassis or adapted agricultural tractor fitted with a crane to feed the chipper and a large bin or skip to hold the chips. The orientation of the chipper intake (forward or sideways) has important connotations. Row thinnings imply a largely linear method of working, and a forward oriented chipper easily receives the butt-ends of the FT lying in the row, allowing the machine to move forward at approximately the same rate as the tree is being fed into the chipper. A forward oriented chipper is mounted in front of or under the cabin, leaving the entire loadbed available for a bin, which typically accommodates around 15 m3 (~3,500 kg).

Side oriented chippers are placed behind the cabin, and take up storage space, but subject the cabin to less vibration and noise and have better mass distribution. Side oriented chippers require that the young trees have been laid into the stand perpendicularly to the strip road. A further disadvantage is that the machine cannot move forward before the tops of the trees being chipped clear the closest residual trees in the stand. The side oriented chipper is better suited to chipping tops from later thinnings where a harvester has been used and where more space is available. Maximising bin size is crucial to improving machine utilisation. Large, bulky bins can; however, cause damage to the residual stand, especially if the machine needs to reverse out of the striproad (Fig. 6.5).

In-fleld chipping requires some form of chip storage at the roadside landing. Tipping the chips onto the ground for later collection decouples production from transport, but results in some losses into the ground, and potential soil contamina­tion, as well as the need for a wheeled loader or self-loading trucks (cranes with buckets) in order to move the chips to the conversion plant. Tipping the chips into a container requires firstly that the bin can be raised to sufficient height (~2.5 m) and that the logistics around the supply and exchange of containers is well managed.