Landclearing Question?? No burning!!

[seastrike]

I am clearing a 5 mile 375 foot wide ROW. There is absolutly no buring allowed. We are grinding all woody debris for boiler fuel and, loading timber on log trucks. The problem I am running into is when I do my final rake and I end up with a nice windrow in the middle of the ROW that is 50% topsoil 50%. The wood that is in this final windrow probably represents 1% of the total volume, but is causing a huge headace. Hualing the windrow off is not an option already tried!! Any suggestions on how I can sift through the final widrow??? I am going to try a track knuckleboom(tigercat 250) with a four foot wide rake type grapple on monday. Maybee that will work!! I have also thought about removing some(everyother) of the tines off my rake(cat966) so we leave more dirt behind. Any suggestions would be appreciated for this is my first clearing job and its going great except for how to handle this final windrow!!

[RonG]

I am clearing a 5 mile 375 foot wide ROW. There is absolutly no buring allowed. We are grinding all woody debris for boiler fuel and, loading timber on log trucks. The problem I am running into is when I do my final rake and I end up with a nice windrow in the middle of the ROW that is 50% topsoil 50%. The wood that is in this final windrow probably represents 1% of the total volume, but is causing a huge headace. Hualing the windrow off is not an option already tried!! Any suggestions on how I can sift through the final widrow??? I am going to try a track knuckleboom(tigercat 250) with a four foot wide rake type grapple on monday. Maybee that will work!! I have also thought about removing some(everyother) of the tines off my rake(cat966) so we leave more dirt behind. Any suggestions would be appreciated for this is my first clearing job and its going great except for how to handle this final windrow!!

I may be going out on a "limb" here,LOL but it sounds like you might be preparing a "right of way" for a pipe line or a power line in which case it seems like you could leave the topsoil on site for ground cover when the construction is finished.The debris from the wood and vegetation is organic and will enrich the topsoil over time.The other alternative is screening the topsoil.I don't know how much of a market you have for topsoil there but some areas have a shortage of it and it might be worth looking into. Ron

[Steve Frazier]

If the soil is fairly dry, you should be able to shake most of it off with a grapple rake on a loader. This wil;l take some time depending on ho long your windrow is.

A screen plant would work too as suggested. An alternative would be a tub grinder, just load your debris in "as is" and it all gets ground up into a topsoil blend.