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Tree clearing technique?

D6c10K

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Apr 1, 2008
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Iowa, USA
I've done a fair amount of tree clearing on the farm. Fence rows, Osage, cedar etc. I need to start clear some heavier timber and was wondering what your techniques are.
This is in hilly southern Iowa in a "pasture" that's been neglected for about 40 years. With a few exceptions it's about equal parts eastern red cedar, honey locust, and osage orange.
Right now all I have is a D6c with brush screens around the rops. I'm looking for an excavator but I may not be able to find one for this project.
Had one guy tell me he pushes trees up in windrows. Presumably that means pushing them into rows from either side.
What's your method?
 

D6c10K

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Iowa, USA
Clearing in order to reclaim the pasture. With the exception of some of the osage being cut for fence posts, it will be burned. Other trees like oak will be left but that's only a few.
 

D6c10K

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Some time ago I ran across a Vietnam era US Army publication that went into detail about the techniques used to clear an area, but I can't seem to find it again.
 

mowingman

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Rayzor piles update 1.jpg rayzor selwyn big pile 4.jpg View attachment 246000 I recently completed another 300 or so acres of tree and brush clearing. It was similar to what you are clearing, including those good old honey locusts. You really need a medium sized excavator to dig those out, (we rented a JD 130G),View attachment 246000 that way you get a lot of the roots and the crap will not grow back so thickly. As we dug the trees up, we used a CTL with a root grapple on most of the stuff. If it got too thick, or too large of a diameter, we used a D6T to pile up the trees and brush. Using just a dozer as you mentioned, is going to be slow, and will leave way too many roots that will regrow.
 

D6c10K

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Forgot to mention in my original post as I was thinking of just the bigger trees.
I do ha a Kubota SVL95 CTL with a tree puller and grapple rake.
The puller works well on smaller trees without disturbing much soil. The grapple works good for final cleanup.
I have a root rake for the D6 but it hasn't been as handy as I thought it would be.
 

Willie B

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For me it was once a Bush Hog, that's what I could afford. Beat the bejesus out of it, but got the job done.
Tractor: $1100.00
Hog: $ 350.00
Repair parts $10,000.00


These days my options have grown. I begin with a small dozer, clear a path to each big tree.
I then, (depending on size) push it over with backhoe, or dig out roots first, then push over with backhoe. A tree trunk is a big lever amplifying the power of the hoe.
I cut fire wood, occasionally a saw log or two.
Then, the dozer smoothes it out, pushes the stump to the stump dump. Here, it is near impossible to get stumps dry enough to burn. A pile off a steep hill takes a long time to rot, but so what?
 

John C.

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When my dad was alive there were no hydraulic excavators and nearly all clearing was done with a dozer. The usual method was to back into the woods and push brush to the outside or push to a central point in the woods and circle the new pile by again backing into the woods and pushing the edges to the pile. My dad modified that somewhat with his shovel and clamshell bucket. The dozer pushed the stuff to the outside line of the woods and dad built piles up to forty or so feet high which would be burned. Dad would light off the fire and every morning he or the dozer would push the stuff on the outside of the fire perimeter back to the center and it would burn some more. They worked as a team clearing the land. Today everyone around here has gone almost completely to excavators with thumbs and maybe one dozer working with two or three excavators. People were charging between $1,500 and $2,500 and acre last I heard. The older guys got where they wouldn't answer the phone for that kind of money.
 

Delmer

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If you have a grapple for the little stuff, then I'd cut the big ones and leave the stumps. Low if you want to be able to spray the pasture, or high if you think you might come back and push the stumps out. Another option would be to pile around the stumps or standing trees you want gone, and burn the pile. It won't remove the stump, but I bet they don't come back. If they do come back, that's what herbicide is for. I can't see spending the money to clear it like it's going to be a housing development for cows. Pull the cedars and locust to burn. Cut the bigger stuff for posts or firewood and burn or just pile the rest. Come back every other year with herbicide to finish of the stragglers.
 

Coaldust

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I’ve been using an Echo CS-490 and Pickup 87 to clear my remote cabin site.
Not very efficient. Don’t recommend it.

85924892-AC8B-4AF7-9FD3-601E36BD0C67.jpeg Drinking brown liquor at the burn pile is kinda fun. Gaze North tomorrow and you might see the glow. That’s not the Northern Lights, it’s my stump pile of beetle kill spruce.

Not like the nice Forum Member on the other side of the Big Susitna River flying track type tractors around to clear his place. Nope. I can hardly afford gasoline for PU87.
 

D6c10K

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Iowa, USA
In quite a bit of it the trees are very close together. Many too close to back in between to push them out.
I don't really want to leave all those stumps because it makes it impossible to do any tillage for reseeding.....nor do I want to do all the hand work to chainsaw literally thousands of trees.

I did manage to push a dozer blade width along the boundary fence to make it possible to get in and do fence repair. I just side cast the trees in among the standing trees where I could find an opening. It was so thick I had trouble seeing the fence in places.
 

Willie B

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Another stump removal method I used for years was a winch. I'd use an extension ladder to chain a snatch block high in a tree. Cable was passed through the snatch block. The end was attached to a stout tree. Truck was attached to another stout tree. 20' of tree trunk makes a Hell of a lever. Only the biggest trees resist. My winch is a Garwood 16Y. I don't know its rating, but it breaks 5/8 steel cable.
 

Delmer

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I think I might have seen the same army manual you were talking about, but they had rome plow spear blades that were sharpened to cut the trees off at the same time they split the stump. and they didn't care what it cost either. I can't remember one pattern, you'd just figure what works. Windrows are as good as any pattern, just need to find the right width, an how much effort to put into piling. It will make a mess, and be marginally economical for grazing land.
 

Randy88

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Excavator and thumb, crawler loader to give more leverage higher up on the tree, if you don't have an excavator, see if you can rent one somewhere. Titan rentals sometimes rents them out with a mechanical thumb, I'd avoid a hydraulic thumb myself, not tough enough for larger timber.
 

D6c10K

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Excavator and thumb, crawler loader to give more leverage higher up on the tree, if you don't have an excavator, see if you can rent one somewhere. Titan rentals sometimes rents them out with a mechanical thumb, I'd avoid a hydraulic thumb myself, not tough enough for larger timber.
Excavator with thumb would be ideal. That's what my brother has but not something I want to borrow/rent from him. If something is going get damaged it will be on borrowed equipment. His has a hyd thumb and works well.
 

Willie B

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Digging out stumps I'd manage without a thumb, especially if you have a dozer. To dig out a stump, rip roots enough to pull, then push the stump. Never comes first try.
Have you heard of a tree spear? I think of Australia & all the land clearing they did there. Several designs, but an extension on your dozer blade to push up on the trunk of a tree. I'd say 10' above ground it grips the trunk & pushes & lifts.
 

skyking1

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Rent a 200+ sized excavator with thumb and put a guy on it.
he yanks and stacks the piles, you are raking roots out and what you can handle. March through and get it in those windrows and try to line them up so they run with the wind direction when you have good burning weather. The wind blowing along the windrow works great, and one does not block the next one from good circulation that way.
Get rid of hoe and let dry out all summer.
Light the piles when you have enough wind and even a little rain in the following fall. Get excavator back to tend the fires down to nothing.
I have burned with a 6, but a thumb does wonders to get all the little nubs and bits burned up cleaner.
 

CM1995

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Since you already have a D6 you might want to look at a Rome cutter blade.

Here are a couple -
https://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/search?Category=459&Manufacturer=ROME&ScopeCategoryIDs=81

Use the Rome blade on the smaller stuff then stack the brush and take the larger trees out with your SU blade. It will be a slight PIA to change blades out so plan your work areas accordingly.

Stack the debris in windrows towards the center of the property away from your fence line and burn what you can manage at one time. The windrows will allow you to burn more efficiently than a huge round pile. Windrows provide more surface area for oxygen to reach the fire and you can push a windrow up easier than a huge round pile.
 

D6c10K

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Iowa, USA
Windrows sound like a good plan.
Anyone ever had the NRCS give you trouble about dozing trees to reclaim pasture. I had one guy tell me they don't want you dozing out stumps on HEL ground (highly erodeable land). Most likely better not to ask. They're first response is usually no to anything you want to do.
 

treemuncher

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Dec 31, 2006
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West TN
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eatin' trees, poopin' chips
Personally, I like to clear out the small stuff first. Once that's gone, I have room to drop the progressively larger stuff without being hung up and wasting time. I normally leave a safety barrier if I want to control flying discharge and take that stuff out last. My finish cuts are done last after material has had some time to dry - even 30 minutes can make a difference. Finish work is always cut down low enough to allow maintenance bush hogging and driving over with vehicles. I've been driving over my jobsites with my trucks for over 24 years with no flats from chips to date.

I reclaim a lot of property to put it back to pasture or make initial pasture after logging work. No need to get rid of chips or even till the ground with my methods. I have one cattle farmer that usually has enough grass coming up within 2 months after I finish my work that he sets his cattle out on that new to-be pasture ground.

I had a customer ask what things looked like after a couple of years after I did my work. Here is a series of pics from what the loggers left me, what I processed it to and what it looks like earlier this year. This is on some land that is cut with a bush hog 2-3 times per year. I doubt they even cast down any grass seed on this. Everything you see was processed to chips. No stumps were removed from the ground.loggers leftovers inside levee bs.jpg IMG_20161004_114225691.jpg May 2021.jpg

Here is another job earlier this year. Customer had timber cut several years ago so lots of stump sprouts and standing dead stumps to deal with. He wants pasture for cattle. Maybe I can get back down there in the next few months to add in how things are going.
IMG_20210527_135457 sm.jpg
 
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