Land Clearing

[Willie B]

We have Black Locust. No thorns, and it lasts 40 years as fence posts. There are many varieties of crap that takes over old farm land. The worst I believe is cherry. Cut a tree 6" diameter flush with the ground, it sprouts 10 more that lay horizontal on the ground three or four feet before turning skyward, and bushing out.

Before owning a dozer I bought an old tractor, and Bush Hog. One sprout at a time, I'd knock it down, (4" diameter), then raise the hog as high as I could, and chew it up. The method is slow!

Willie

 

[td25c]

Looks like you are getting along good JS300 . Would that be around 15 year growth what you are taking out ?

Thought about your thread today while mowing . http://www.heavytruckforums.com/showthread.php?263-Some-Holmes-750-action&p=2537&viewfull=1#post2537

 

[fxdwg]

That's the exact reason I bought the DC95 for our place in Arkansas - those damn thorny locust! We've found they'll come back from a root piece that's the diameter of your little finger. Unfortunately, our land is a rocky hillside, as we're in the Ouachita mountains. Can you say SLOW! I managed to get about an acre cleared last Saturday. Having never even been on a dozer until I bought this one, some of the lack of speed may be due to operator incompetence!

Same scenario too, the land was a working cattle farm 30 years ago when the health of the main farmers started to prevent them from doing anything.

Any land clearing tips for a complete novice? I'm having a very hard time just trying to keep the blade from either digging in or running over my tree pile I'm pushing. Stock blade.

 

[JS300]

td25c yes I would say 15 year growth. I've had the place next to it for 8 years now and this place was mostly shreddable back then. Somedays I wonder if I made the right decision to buy a 200 acre locust patch.
Fxdwg My place is blackland and has very little rocks. My method is to tilt the blade and try to run it in the ground about 6-8" before the tree then tilt the blade back level while moving forward. The little ones are the hardest to get most bigger ones just push over then back up set the blade on the ground and drive forward. The giy I have running the dozer now keeps the blade flat and walks everything down the pushes it out. It takes longer but the end result is smoother. I'm no expert and this is my first dozer so I let him do his thing.
I had the regrowth sprayed this week and the results are looking good.

 

[fxdwg]

Did you spray with grazon?

 

[CDUB]

I agree it is harder to kill the larger locust with next. Just mix it per the label and make sure you get the leaves sprayed good. Banvil will kill locust too. I haven't found anything for osage orange or ceder. I have been pulling the osage that I can roots and all.

Osage orange may take several applications to kill, but we have good luck with Pastureguard. It's kind of pricey, so now we've switched to a mixture of tordon, 2,4-d and remedy. It's supposed to be the same thing as Pastureguard. It smoked the sprouts I sprayed this spring.

 

[td25c]

td25c yes I would say 15 year growth. I've had the place next to it for 8 years now and this place was mostly shreddable back then. Somedays I wonder if I made the right decision to buy a 200 acre locust patch.
Fxdwg My place is blackland and has very little rocks. My method is to tilt the blade and try to run it in the ground about 6-8" before the tree then tilt the blade back level while moving forward. The little ones are the hardest to get most bigger ones just push over then back up set the blade on the ground and drive forward. The giy I have running the dozer now keeps the blade flat and walks everything down the pushes it out. It takes longer but the end result is smoother. I'm no expert and this is my first dozer so I let him do his thing.
I had the regrowth sprayed this week and the results are looking good.

I think you will do fine on the 200 acre investment JS300 . That ground really lays nice . Any potential for cropping ?

If it were myself in your shoes would buy about 8' of cutting edge stock & weld in between the rake teeth maybe 4" above the bottom of the tooth similar to what Scrub Puller posted .

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.co...-Land-Clearing&p=642421&viewfull=1#post642421

This will give you the shear effect , wont be a damn thing standing after you make a pass . Might also grab some 4" pipe & make a "push bar" on top . I would even sharpen the cutting edge bits just like we do with the K/G blade .

 

[JS300]

We sprayed Banvil 2-4-D and Grazon Next. The Banvil was to target ragweed but it gets locust too. The Grazon Next was sprayed on what we have cleared to get the locust and cucklburs.
I'm thinking about a brush guard for the rake and welding something to the teeth like td25c suggested to go over some of the ground that allot of little whippy stuff that is hard to get.
Having dozer trouble now so it's taking up some of my clearing time. Maybe get her back on track this weekend though.

 

[JS300]

Wanted to give a quick update. We finished clearing the biggest section of land on Saturday. It was slow go but got it done without any more mishaps. I'm gonna say the operator was able to clear 1 acre every 4-5 hours, does this seem reasonable to yall? Most of the stuff was so thick you couldn't walk through it and he has it looking great now, very few sticks or trash left in fields. In fact it looks so good I told him I would like to work him another month or so to do a few more projects. One being a 20 acre block of woods I had planned on leaving, another is a road and pad for a hay barn.

 

[Tones]

Would the Mesquite Grubber developed in conjunction with the Unversity of Texas, Dallas Campus be an option. It may be slower but it's whole plant removal and less spaying required.

 

[JS300]

I used a tree puller made by CL fab to clear about 80 acres with a skid steer. It's pretty much same concept as the grubber. Worked great and was faster than the dozer in the spotty areas but in the really thick stuff it was just too slow.