The owner of the Hochsauerland-based small business “Gala-Forst Löher,” Elmar Löher, specializes in services and operations with radio-controlled machines. With its radio-controlled vehicles, the company supports projects for the maintenance of green spaces, trees and biotopes, and for reforestation. Since 2016, Löher has relied on machines Green Climber from MDB.
Indeed, if we ask the athletically-built gentleman from Sauerland how he came to this job, he replies, “As a professional and forester, I turned my back on this profession at first.” He decided to do a second apprenticeship as a computer scientist and then wanted to open his own gym. During that time he discovered his great passion for climbing and became a specialist in tree care and restoration. He combined his old profession with his new hobby and founded an arboriculture business in 2007. In the following years, the entrepreneur realized that he needed to specialize further to differentiate himself from the competition. That is how he came to know the company VOGT in Schmallenberg-Felbecke. VOGT sells professional landscape maintenance technology and distributes the MDB range of remote-controlled products Green Climber. Today Löher can certainly be called “the king of slopes.” No steep meadow or forest is impregnable for him and his range of machines, no matter how difficult or steep the terrain.
Elmar Löher’s machines currently include the MDB models Green Climber LV 500 PRO and LV 800, which offer enough power for even the most demanding forestry work. In addition to the standard mulching head for grass and weeds, Löher also has a forestry mulcher and a log cutter, which can also be used to safely remove tree stumps on steep slopes. The MDB Green Climber LV 800 also becomes a safe means of transport for material recovery on slopes when equipped with a mounted shovel.
MDB machines can be used on slopes up to 70 degrees thanks to their special low center of gravity design, width-adjustable undercarriage and patented engine oil lubrication, which are also fully necessary for Löher’s forestry operations. The machine’s wide track contact areas reduce ground pressure to an acceptable level of 170 g/cm². “Working gently on the soil is becoming increasingly important in our highly compacted cultivated areas,” says the experienced forester. For this reason, soil conservation machines should always be used for mulching on steep slopes, because otherwise surface water will be absorbed less and less by today’s highly compacted soils.
We met Elmar Löher at a typical construction site to accompany the specialist with his Green Climber radio-controlled machines in extreme use. The operational area is about 30 hectares and belongs to a medium-sized company in the Sauerland region. Due to the company’s expansion, additional production facilities were gradually built, for which a large amount of material had to be extracted from the mountain. In this way, steep slopes with a gradient of up to 70 degrees were created on the entire site, which had to be maintained and worked on a regular basis with a mulcher and a forestry cutter.
In addition, it is necessary to consider that the area has only a thin layer of soil and, as a result, work equipment must work as safely as possible while being gentle on the ground. Gala-Forst Löher was the only service provider able to submit a cost-effective bid for the maintenance of these slopes that took into account all the factors mentioned above.
At that time, Elmar Löher designed a system to work the soil gently and effectively. The forestry machine Green Climber LV 800 working on the slope is connected by a steel cable winch anchored to LV 500 PRO at the top of the slope, on which a special traction winch is mounted. In this way, the machine is further secured on the slope, the risk of slipping is minimized, and it can therefore work on steep slopes effortlessly and safely.
Both machines can be controlled simultaneously by a single operator via radio remote control. Elmar Löher explains that this solution is up to twenty times more effective than traditional manual work with a brushcutter. This means that even the most difficult areas can be worked efficiently, safely, and gently for the soil. In conclusion, what seems like an impossible task has become possible thanks to Elmar Löher’s invention, the advice of the VOGT team, and the MDB machines Green Climber.