Riddler
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2004
- Messages
- 262
- Location
- Sonoma County, CA
- Tractor
- New Holland TN75VA, New Holland TC45DA, New Holland TC18
Half of my 50 acre place is a mixed oak/conifer woodland. Little maintanence has been performed in the woodland for 20 years. I also have a few acres of clearing to do soon.
There are dead, dying or soon to be cleared trees of every size (up to 24" or more), with branches that can often exceed a few inches in diameter. For true brush and vines, my rotary cutter does a decent job of reducing their volume in place, or after I have pulled or cut them at ground level. Finally, tree or shrub "prunings," as such, don't accumulate much around my place
So far, over the four years I have owned my place, I have dragged all the non-firewood debris to various burn piles. For lots of reasons, I would love to convert the debris into mulch in place, or material suitable for a compost pile.
If have TC45DA and, very soon, a TC18. In an ideal world, I would prefer to run an attachment with the smaller tractor, leaving the BH and loader on the larger tractor free to do other things. If I do that though, I will need to find a way to process the 4"-6" diameter material separately (e.g., leave it in place to rot, get used to collecting smaller diameter firewood, maintain a burn pile dedicated to the in-between diameter stuff, etc.).
My first question has to do with the chipper v. chipper/shredder issue. If most of what I am going to feed in the machine are green tree branches limbed from large trees, as well as small diameter tree and shrub trunks with their branches intact, will I a find a PTO driven chipper only (i.e., no shredder) lacking at all? Is there a "clogging" issue with a chipper that is fed a large dose of green material along with the trunks and branches? A shredder sounds nice, but if the chipper will dispose of the leaves and twigs along with the trunks and more substantial branches, then I'm fine with that.
My second question has to do with feeders. It is important that I be able to place debris in the hopper and leave it. I see references in the posts to non-feeder machines that nevertheless "pull" material in. If I dispense with a feeder of any type, can I expect to be occupied at the machine most of the time monitoring the progress of most of what I feed? When it comes to feeders, what are main advantages of a hydraulic v. mechanical feed mechanism.
Finally, for those of you who operate a 4" chipper, but have to deal with 4"-6" material some of the time, what's your solution? Do you long for the day when the 4" chipper becomes a 6" unit, or are you happy sorting things out as you fell, limb and buck trees, so that the 4" chipper keeps humming without undue delays?
There are dead, dying or soon to be cleared trees of every size (up to 24" or more), with branches that can often exceed a few inches in diameter. For true brush and vines, my rotary cutter does a decent job of reducing their volume in place, or after I have pulled or cut them at ground level. Finally, tree or shrub "prunings," as such, don't accumulate much around my place
So far, over the four years I have owned my place, I have dragged all the non-firewood debris to various burn piles. For lots of reasons, I would love to convert the debris into mulch in place, or material suitable for a compost pile.
If have TC45DA and, very soon, a TC18. In an ideal world, I would prefer to run an attachment with the smaller tractor, leaving the BH and loader on the larger tractor free to do other things. If I do that though, I will need to find a way to process the 4"-6" diameter material separately (e.g., leave it in place to rot, get used to collecting smaller diameter firewood, maintain a burn pile dedicated to the in-between diameter stuff, etc.).
My first question has to do with the chipper v. chipper/shredder issue. If most of what I am going to feed in the machine are green tree branches limbed from large trees, as well as small diameter tree and shrub trunks with their branches intact, will I a find a PTO driven chipper only (i.e., no shredder) lacking at all? Is there a "clogging" issue with a chipper that is fed a large dose of green material along with the trunks and branches? A shredder sounds nice, but if the chipper will dispose of the leaves and twigs along with the trunks and more substantial branches, then I'm fine with that.
My second question has to do with feeders. It is important that I be able to place debris in the hopper and leave it. I see references in the posts to non-feeder machines that nevertheless "pull" material in. If I dispense with a feeder of any type, can I expect to be occupied at the machine most of the time monitoring the progress of most of what I feed? When it comes to feeders, what are main advantages of a hydraulic v. mechanical feed mechanism.
Finally, for those of you who operate a 4" chipper, but have to deal with 4"-6" material some of the time, what's your solution? Do you long for the day when the 4" chipper becomes a 6" unit, or are you happy sorting things out as you fell, limb and buck trees, so that the 4" chipper keeps humming without undue delays?