Best equipment for leveling paths after tornado timbering?

[DPForumDog]

When you have hundreds of acres of root balls and holes you cant bring in that amount of dirt. Originally we were hauling off the stumps but them we have to bring it dirt. Given the thousands of rootballs, burying the stumps is the most practical thing to do.

 

[DPForumDog]

IMOP you have an excavator (don't know what size), a skid steer and a tractor.

View attachment 254482

We have a JD135D excavator, a pretty big Ford Back hoe and a skidsteer and a couple tractors. We have ordered another skidsteer with high flow so that I can get a mulcher. I will look into the bobcat grading attachment mentioned above.

We do not have hills. Flatwoods is normally flat as a flitter. At least in our neck of the woods anyway.

Thanks everyone for the discussion.

 

[skyking1]

135D that is a nice sized machine. Too bad it is not a blade version, you can get a lot done with that.

 

[KSSS]

Burying stumps likely would make the most sense. I would use your excavator and dig a large hole (s) (somewhere out of the way) stage the ex material near the hole, fill it with stumps and burn them if practical and bury them. Grade out the mounds of excess material so you can use it to fill in the hole as the stumps decompose. It would look natural over time and give you access to fill dirt if you needed it. I would rather have several locations like this than burying them everywhere. If you do get a mulcher, it would be good to spread the chips over the trail. On vehicles like ATV's the chips will almost act as Geo Grid does. It can keep the ATV's from sinking or tearing up the trail and it would look good.

 

[skyking1]

^ agree with all of that. I would rather know where the stumps are, have the extra dirt there, and burn if at all possible to reduce the rottage/sinking.
When we cleared the orchard for berries, we popped out the stumps with a TD-18 and then drug them to the pile with the farm tractors. This freed up the big dozer and we could do it no problem.

 

[CM1995]

We have ordered another skidsteer with high flow so that I can get a mulcher.

What kind/size/brand of SSL did you order?

Want to caution that a mulcher on a SSL/CTL high flow or not is limited in what it can do. We run 2 Cat 279D's both high flow. From time to time we'll rent a mulching head from Thompson for light clearing which it does great on 4-6" pines and 3-5" hardwoods however it would take an eternity and 1000's of gallons of diesel to process large stumps on the scale you are describing.

Just my $.03 adjusted for massive inflation. The next free advice will probably be in the $.04 range.

 

[skyking1]

From the sounds of it they are not short of iron or money to get iron. This is a welcome change to most posts where we get a picture of a moss-crusted old sad thing, asking of it can go back to the 1970's production levels on a shoestring budget