In recent years, some manufacturers have developed new downsized feller-bunchers that are particularly suited to small-tree harvesting. One of these machines was tested in some of the most promising small tree resources of Europe, namely: Finnish young conifer forests, French hornbeam coppice and Italian sycamore plantations. The tests were conducted within the scope of a 3-year long European project, whose goal was to assess the suitability of this new technology to the production of wood biomass from silvicultural operations. Depending on site characteristics, the machine reached an average productivity between 4 and 8 green tonnes per net working hour, comparing favourably with other European shear-type felling heads and qualifying for deployment on a European scale. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.