MEDFORD (AP) — A new logging machine with sophisticated cutting tools could provide a better way to thin Southern Oregon’s crowded forests.

Jack LeRoy has been using his “dangle head processor” in the woods northeast of Prospect.

The machine looks like a small tracked excavator, but instead of a digging bucket it carries specialized tools that swivel like a wrist at the end of a boom.

It can cut a tree, scrape off the limbs, and saw the log to precise lengths in less than a minute.

As the machine creeps through the trees, the cutting tools seem to flop around at the end of the boom, hence the “dangle head.”

The crawler can cut and process trees up to about 15 inches in diameter at chest height.

The largest logs can go to a mill to be sawn into dimensional lumber. Mid-sized trees become posts or poles, and the smallest sticks can be chipped or used for fuel.

LeRoy, a Central Point logger, is using the equipment to remove small trees that have relatively little market value. The trees need to come out to give others room to grow and reduce the risk of fire, but removing them by hand would make the work too costly to pay for itself.

“To make (thinning) economically feasible it’s got to be mechanized,” LeRoy said. “But it still has to meet the environmental standards we have now.”

LeRoy said the crawler puts less pressure per square inch on the soil than a human foot, and it causes minimal soil disturbance because it uses the branches it strips from trees as a protective mat between its tracks and the forest floor.

Jim Fiorelli, a supervisory forester in the High Cascades Ranger District of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, said the machine can be useful for separating different species of trees.

“We’re taking out the ponderosa pine and leaving the Douglas fir,” Fiorelli said. “Opening up the stand will allow the Douglas fir to grow, put on some cones and do some natural regeneration.”

Log-processing machines like LeRoy’s have been around for some time.

But loggers and foresters are still learning new ways to use them efficiently for forest health projects such as thinning, said Amy Wilson, coordinator for Southwest Oregon Resource Conservation and Development Council.

The nonprofit organization is subsidizing LeRoy’s logging operation with funds from a $120,000 grant from the National Fire Plan, which was developed to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire on forestland.

The grant money pays LeRoy for the time his machine operator spends working on the ground. Foresters will study the site and gather data about how the thinned stands fare to help other foresters and loggers expand their options for removing small trees.

“We want to gather some really good information about how these projects work,” Wilson said.