I just finished up a clearing job where I ran into a LOT of mature Kudzu, some of this stuff was 3" in diameter where it had something to grow onto. I'm currently running a Bobcat 763 with a CID 60" Rotory mower and it was not the tool for the job. The vines would just wrap on the mower almost as soon as you touched them where they were thick. You could watch the stuff ripping out of the ground out about 15' in front of where I was cutting. Lol I actually had to load up the machine after 5 hours and take it home to disassemble the mower to get all the crap that was wrapped around the shaft that I couldn't get to.
I changed course and brought the toothed bucket and grapple to rip the stuff out and push it into burn piles. It wasn't easy goung but you could drive in a bit, rip it up as high as you could and sorta roll it along. I did about 2 1/2 acres and it took around 16 hours. There was also some old downed timber layed down in the stuff which made it worse but I used that as the base for thhe burn pile. I also modified to brush cutter by welding some teeth on the back of the flywheel to cut the vines that were getting wrapped in there and it seemed to work very well. I ran the cutter to cleanup all the leftovers.
I plan on upgrading to a bigger machine and mulcher down the road and was wondering how you all tackle such jobs? Any wisdom to share is appriciated.
I changed course and brought the toothed bucket and grapple to rip the stuff out and push it into burn piles. It wasn't easy goung but you could drive in a bit, rip it up as high as you could and sorta roll it along. I did about 2 1/2 acres and it took around 16 hours. There was also some old downed timber layed down in the stuff which made it worse but I used that as the base for thhe burn pile. I also modified to brush cutter by welding some teeth on the back of the flywheel to cut the vines that were getting wrapped in there and it seemed to work very well. I ran the cutter to cleanup all the leftovers.
I plan on upgrading to a bigger machine and mulcher down the road and was wondering how you all tackle such jobs? Any wisdom to share is appriciated.