Best attachment for stick/brush removal?

   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #1  

GinNB

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2007
Messages
336
Location
NB, Canada, eh?
Tractor
2x Kubota M108S, M105S, 2x M9000, IH885, IH584, IH484, IH454, F3000, F3610, C50, JX70, Landini 5830, JD4630 sprayer
I know that a grapple is great for piles, but I have a lot of land I'd like to clear of trees and brush. Cutting trees with a chainsaw and removing them whole eliminates most of that brush, but I'd like to use a bushhog/rotary mower/whatever to cut up the stuff that's 10-15' high and have a good rake or rotating wire brush or something to pile up most of the debris.

Has anybody tried a hay tedder? Standard rock rakes for landscaping don't work because there are still short stumps and exposed roots and the land isn't perfectly level. I just ended up bending the tines and not moving any sticks. Best solution I can think of is a forestry mulcher, but they're terribly expensive. About $40,000 for a medium-duty one for a 80-100hp farm tractor.

Fae Group Forestry universal mulchers

It'll leave the ground smooth with the sticks/stumps ground into little bits, but for my needs I'd be happy with just most of the larger sticks gone.
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #2  
GinNB:

Welcome to TBN :D! Tell us a little more about your property, tractor, attachments, and the vegetation you intend to rotary cut. Jay
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #3  
Those forrestry mulchers are the bees knees! I would just love to get one, even a rental - drool. But the price for private ownership is just too high.

Most trees in the 10-15' tall range are in the 1-3" diameter zone. If you can get a medium duty rotary cutter like a Woods Brush Bull 600, 720 or an equivalent Bushog brand you should be able to cut up the trees.

Don't know how large your tractor is, but larger is much much better than smaller for that chore. If you have a 80-100 hp tractor (as referenced in your post), you can maybe get a used bat wing and go to town.

jb
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #4  
I have done the trick where you clear with a brush hog. It actually works well to digest the larger sticks into mulch. You will have to learn how to set your brush hog down on the forest floor and let it grind. It is noisy and violent and if you didn't respect the destructive ability of the mower before you will see it in a whole new light after using it this way. A slip clutch is required.


It is hard on the brush hog but that is why you would need to either buy a cheap one and destroy it or invest in a heavy duty hog and use it as designed. If you have large diameter trees and large stumps that you want removed then you'll need to cut the tree down, limb it in place, drag off the log and then mow eveything else where it lies except for the stump which will need to be dug out, let rot, or ground down by something other than your brush hog.

The grind/mow method will eliminate the extremely huyge piles of slash that a 10-15' tall forest produces. It will put all this energy back into the ground as compost.

I can't wait to see your photos. I have quite a few if you would like to see what a brush hog can do to 2-3" softwood trees.
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #5  
My Ford 7710 came with a boom mower, with a 4' flail head. It will pretty much do what those mulchers appear to do, or close, as long as you have a little bit more time. I can reach 25' in the air and just drop it slowly onto a tree and watch it disappear. Anything smaller than 4" in softwood doesn't slow it down, and I have actually fallen trees that are over a foot in diameter. The hammer knives are great, but are not carbide, so it doesn't eat quite as quickly as a mulcher with carbide teeth.
The drawback of these types of cutters on a tractor is having to continously look over your shoulder, which puts a twist in your neck. One advantage is I don't have to drive where I need to clear, as I can park it and just reach out and do the clearing. That allows me to see where I am going!
David from jax
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal?
  • Thread Starter
#6  
I've got a bunch of tractors. For woods work I usually use either the 584 IH 4WD or 2WD 484 IH because they're older and have all-steel cabs. If I need more horsepower I've got a couple of Kubota M9000s (80 at the shaft) and a M105S (93PTO). I've got three rotary mowers. A lightweight 5' Woods Dixie Cutter that's basically junk now, a Woods R106, and a BrushBull 7200. The last two are very heavy duty (1300+ lbs) 6' mowers that're rated for a 4" tree.

As for the land, I've got multiple lots with different types of tree cover. Everything from light brush to heavy brush to standing timber. The land under most of what I want to clear is reasonably but not perfectly smooth.

I want to clear the land to turn it into lowbush blueberry ground. The sticks get in the way of the rakes when the rakers or harvesters try to harvest the berries.

No sticks = happy handrakers
No stumps = happy harvester operators

I can wait a bit to throw harvesters at it, but blueberries usually grow from 2-4" from ground level and sticks are a pain. I'd love to get a machine that'll scratch the ground up and pile sticks for removal on ground that has short stumps and some exposed roots left on it.

I've got a few flail mowers as well, but while they'll scratch down the ends of smaller stumps, they don't like larger stumps and won't get rid of much in the way of chopped up alders, small birches, willows, etc. They still leave too much organic matter laying in the way.

And thx for the welcome, folks. Any and all hints appreciated.
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal?
  • Thread Starter
#7  
Sandman, that boom mower sounds like quite a toy. Got a brand/model# for it? Are the hammer knives large cast ones? I've got a Berti 5' 3pt hitch mower with hammer knives on it. Nice when new (knives and mower both), but it currently suffers from a bad case of pooroperator-itis. I don't know why, but finding operators who can properly adjust a mower's cutting height isn't as easy as it should be. :mad:
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal? #8  
My favorite thing to say to my old boss at my last job, was "Good help is hard to get". He understood completely, but apparently I didn't, because after 7 years they terminated me for an accident. First one in 27 years of driving a big truck.
My mower is a Bomford-Turner mower that came on an old FWA tractor that I purchased. Here is a picture of the arm with a homemade bucket installed.








Most of these pictures have been seen before on TBN, but though I would throw them in for you. Mine are the cast hammer knives, which work a lot better than I would have ever thought!
David from jax
 
   / Best attachment for stick/brush removal?
  • Thread Starter
#9  
Quite the, um, flexible mower sandman. Unfortunately, a quick Google search didn't give me a pic of the hammer knives.

Now all I need is a stick magnet for crap removal. :)
 
 
 
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