My back-of-the-envelope calcs suggest this process turns 10 units of biomass energy into 3 units of diesel energy...

While it's not quite as bad as that, this is the first area I pressed David on. I know about what GTL and CTL give, efficiency wise, so I knew that would be an area to explore. David said that out of all the recent visitors to come through, I was the only person to ask that. But I can't say exactly what he said, as I am covered by an NDA. But you can get to a ballpark number (which you did) by looking at wood in and fuel and electricity out.

How many units of diesel energy does it take to get 10 units of biomass?

That depends.

If you let it grow freely and burn it in place, you get all the heat with zero diesel energy input ;-)

That should be mostly determined by the mode of transportation. Cheapest would be using waterways. I assume that the seeding, is a negligible expense, considering the high plant/seed weight ratio.