Land has been cut and left in a mess. Best cheapest way to plant trees and fix it up?

[Georgia Iron]

Any of you guys work in forestry? I am looking at purchasing some land and will need to plant about 60 acres of cut over. Some of it was planted with pines 40 years ago. They cut the pines and large surrounding oaks and they have left one hell of a mess. It was cut last year. I am going under contract for $1850.00 per acre and I just did my inspection. From what I can see there are on average 400 trees stumps per acre? They left piles of wasted wood, small timber and bark. The land will need a fire break which is going to be just over a 1.5 miles long. Big stumps on the edge and I was thinking I might as well clear a 35 foot wide road around the border.

My Cat 953 track loader and Case 160 excavator are going to have a time with this mess.

I have seen them flying over with a Helo spraying poison and then burning it off during winter. What is the draw back to just burning without poisoning the existing growth. I am guessing the Helo ain't cheap. Also is it possible for me to plant this using my loader or skid steers I have seen the small dozers that a guy sits on the back of but I am wondering if I could do it myself or if it is even worth trying.


Any thoughts on how to do this right and save money? I would bet there are plenty of snakes in this mess. I plan to clear 4 to 5 acres for food plots and the stumps are going to give me fits as they chopped those real close to the dirt.

 

[Georgia Iron]

a tree planting vid

and a few more photos

 

[Tones]

A mess like that IMHO is slow going with a forestry mulcher because the crossed up timber.
Next option is to stick rake into windrows either for burning or wood hog. Burning windrows then becomes access track for the loggers next time
Third option is to leave it and plant, that mess will have rotted away by the time the next generation of trees have matured, same with the stumps

 

[Welder Dave]

I think you'd need a big dozer with a root rake to clear that mess. Something like they use in Australia might be even better. Have heard that things don't grow well after mulching.

 

[HarleyHappy]

Contact the Forestry Agent in your area, register it as a tree farm.
They will plant it under contract, they will hire comany that hire immigrants using Hoedads to plant gen 2 Southern Yellow Pines and may require you to have it sprayed on the 2nd year and split the cost with you.
I did this in Middle Tennessee on a couple hundred acres and they even cleaned some of it up for me. If you are doing this for food plots they will even help with that.
I was amazed at how fast that stuff rots compared to up north with the heat.
Dont get me wrong, rowed out looks great but costs a ton of money an time.

 

[ianjoub]

I was going to get Frasier Fir from these folks, about $.50/ stem when buying bulk.

Paint Creek Nursery and Tree Farm

Wisconsin's number one nursery.

www.paintcreeknursery.com

 

[JaredV]

In Western Washington the timber companies just leave the slash and plant through it. Wherever the processor leaves piles on the landings or along the roads, they burn them first and then plant in whatever didn't burn. Some companies don't even burn them, just plant around them. It's pretty wet here so that helps rot it down.

 

[treemuncher]

A mess like that IMHO is slow going with a forestry mulcher because the crossed up timber.
Next option is to stick rake into windrows either for burning or wood hog. Burning windrows then becomes access track for the loggers next time
Third option is to leave it and plant, that mess will have rotted away by the time the next generation of trees have matured, same with the stumps

I just finished working on a new 1,000 acre subdivision last week with cut over much like that. I was using the Barko 937 mulcher that has the head float option - makes stumped ground pretty easy for the most part. Not a problem dealing with crossed up pieces with the big machine. The hardwoods were sometimes slow going but the pines were often not even felt. My guess was 2 years since the cut was completed by the amount of regrowth. I would guess that I was covering 5+ acres per day. They had me jumping around a lot so no easy way to calculate true acreage but I've covered other pine plantation stumpings at around 5 acres a day with this machine. Throw down grass seed over the mulch when I'm done and it will green up in a few weeks.

With fairly flat ground like in the pics, it would be an easy job for a high hp rubber tired mulcher. The longer the material sits, the softer it will be and the cheaper the mulching will be. Large, slow material can always be pushed aside. Once all the stumps are cut flush to grade, it would be easy to manage any leftover pieces if you wanted to build burn piles.

 

[Welder Dave]

Yeah, you may be be able to get free saplings to plant. The gov't. here has some kind of program where you can get hundreds if not thousands of free saplings to re-beautify area's. I'm not sure what the criteria is but would think after logging or a fire would qualify. If they'll come in and plant them all the better.

 

[HarleyHappy]

Mine was tornado damage, lost about 40 acres, they did most of the work and cost was minimal.

 

[CM1995]

What is your ultimate goal for the property GI? Investment, hunting, both?

$1850 for 60 acres is about as cheap as any land in the southeast.

 

[Tugger2]

This would be my choice,anyone have the phone number for Letourneau ?

 

[Georgia Iron]

What is your ultimate goal for the property GI? Investment, hunting, both?

$1850 for 60 acres is about as cheap as any land in the southeast.

1850 per acre. About 30 acres are in a swamp, with some really big cypress trees as in 10' or so in diameter - too big to cut and use - with a rail line (100' wide) going threw the swamp. Then up above on the high land portion 8 acres sit under a high voltage power line which is also 100' wide but makes for cleared land that can be planted with crops or food plots. One side is bordered by a small creek and the railroad side is bordered by a larger creek but the property is about 50 or so feet above the rail line so it falls off pretty fast to get down to the railroad/swamp.

Pretty good layout. Access to the land is across someone else's 70 acre parcel with a 20' easement so the land sits about 1/2 mile off a paved county road. I don't believe it will ever have power on it, I don't think they allow u to pull power off the high voltage line. And it is a long way to the road with no power rights in the access easement.

The other side is bordered by 600 acres of timber with out of town owners and the 70 acres is cut over.

So most definitely a hunting type tract and/or timber tract. It borders existing property that I have in the swamp near the rail line. The below topo map show the terrain a little better. The outside red line is drawn around the black property border lines and the inside box marks the clear cut that occured.

Taking out the power line looks to be around 55 acres of cut over. I will probably install a few food plots maybe 5 or 6 acres, do border roads and maybe a cross property road side to side in the middle which might also serve a midfire break. Back in the 60', 70' and 80's the flat area was a field. Now it is a no mans land.

 

[HarleyHappy]

Good hunting property.

 

[CM1995]

There are or were opportunities to "sell" or rather get paid for the acreage of the wetland portion of the property. There is an EPA program where a landowner can develop their wetlands if they can swap their acreage for others.

I don't know much about it other than a friend of mine that raises cows had Westervelt approach him on a 40 acre parcel in order to purchase the wetland portion but let him still use it. They were wanting to develop a parcel that had wetlands and needed to offset their wetland acreage elsewhere. The deal didn't develop unfortunately.

IIRC he paid $80K for the 40 acres which is cheap in our county and Westervelt was offering $60K for 20 acres and he could still use it. That was several years ago so the rules may have changed since then.

 

[CM1995]

This would be my choice,anyone have the phone number for Letourneau ? View attachment 311869

One of the few YT videos of equipment I enjoy watching!

 

[GODSDOZER]

D9 dozer and v shear blade.

 

[chidog]

That would be easy clearing if there is no wet areas. The planting in slash in Wa is not smart, just helps the fires if they come.

 

[aighead]

I watched a 33 acre plot of beautiful forest across the road from me get destroyed in pretty minimal time by a big excavator and eventually a big bulldozer. The hoe came in and knocked the trees over (but probably took a lot of stumps with them) and the pile looked similar to what you've got, they then came in with the bulldozer and pushed everything into a massive pile to burn/bury. They are doing some farming there now.

 

[Vetech63]

Declare that as a beaver preserve