The rubber-tyred, purpose-built harvester was put to the test for the first time at the logging company's Blue Mountains thinning site in South Otago this week.
Logging trees has traditionally been the domain of men on the ground wielding chainsaws, a process a worker can take five minutes to fell a tree.
In contrast company owner Mike Hurring said modern machines using world-leading technology, could fell a tree, trim it, and cut it into lengths in 30 seconds.
''It's safer, it's faster, it makes us more cost-competitive,'' Mr Hurring said.
The harvester, fitted with a top-of-the-line, New Zealand-made Waratah harvesting head, is a combination of Finnish and New Zealand ingenuity that he called the only one of its kind in the world. He said it would double the company's production at the thinning site.
''They can go 24 hours a day, seven days a week as well.
''They light up like a Christmas tree. It makes night into day.''
The logging company had previously used a harvester that was built from an excavator base, but the new machine is expected to pay for itself quickly.
''It's pricey,'' he said.
''It's keeping up with the times, I suppose. It's how forestry has evolved really. Mechanised forestry is the big game: safety, people off the ground.''
John Deere advertises its flagship machine as one built for ''steep terrain and big timber''.
The 1470E has an 11m boom, a 9-litre engine, a rotating cabin and customisable operator controls.
