What Machine to Clear 4 Acres of Forest?

[rustyshakelford]

If you can run machines I'd rent a track ho for a week. I currently am running a komatsu pc88 with thumb. Paid $1575 for a week and I hauled it myself. It weights around 18-19k. Use that for a week and make a mess. However, you'll have nice clean piles to burn. Next week rent a Dozer and smooth it all out. Ideally you'll have both machines at the same time but to be efficient you need another operator. 450j JD or case 850 would be plenty. Should rent for about 1200 a week plus hauling. Atleast that was local prices recently. No way I'd pay 1800 for two days. Usually, 3 days rental is a week

Brett

 

[Snobdds]

Hire someone like me that mulches for a living. If it is a big machine, it can handle anything and keep the cost per acre reasonable. Small machines won't handle big or dense forest, efficiently. Log off everything that makes you money, then call in a machine that can clean up the mess.

This red oak was 5'4" at the cut. I already ate through most of the crown prior to taking the pic. It was too big to handle or do anything with, so I ate it.

Impressive! That should handle about anything. Sadly, I have too many rocks.

 

[Dadnatron]

My local CAT dealer (Whayne) rents a 'forestry ready' CTL 299 and also a forestry head designed for it, separately.

I think both together are around $700-800/day. Not cheap and honestly, I don't know how much it can do in a day, but I will be renting it for a smaller patch of undergrowth etc, sometime this summer/fall.

 

[CalG]

A D5 seems reasonable

 

[Olympus]

I have to remove all stumps and root balls to be eligible for the cost share money.

 

[Houston Dirt Work]

Here in Houston Dirt Work help kind of depends on your particular circumstance and it's always best to get a quote before anything. Don't just dive into random equipment if you aren't 100% sure of what you're doing!

 

[TnAndy]

I have to remove all stumps and root balls to be eligible for the cost share money.

Amazing the State will pay you to make what seems to be cow pasture.

For wildlife, you'd think simply dropping the trees would be what they are after....the re-sprouting of stumps and other brush makes great deer browse, the blackberries attract bears/etc, the fallen timber great places for small wildlife to setup home, and so on.

 

[Tigershark]

We recently cleared a couple of acres of woods for a new pond took a highlift and a D5 dozer about 7 hours to knock down all th trees and make a huge burn pile. The operators were great and very skilled. Track hoe came in to core the dam but we were impressed at how well th highlift pushed over 40 ft plus trees and the dozer could flat out clear the land. No big holes left over th root balls eventually burned down after a couple of weeks

 

[4570Man]

Are you completely clearing it or thinning out the stuff smaller than like 10"?

 

[leonz]

Ok, so I've been working with my state conservation department about doing what they call "permanent forest openings" for wildlife food plots on my hunting land. The conservation department will cost-share $700/acre, but they have to approve the sites, sizes, locations, etc. Which is all fine by me. So the conservation guy went out to my property with me and approved two separate sites that are roughly 2 acres each for openings. My property has some decent logging trails to access these two locations, so there would not be any need to develop new roads or anything. But essentially, I'm looking to see whether it would be feasible or cost effective for me to rent a machine and do the work myself versus paying an excavating company to do the work.

So my main question is what kind of machine would be better for this job? Dozer or excavator? Trees in these areas varied with a lot of small stuff all the way up to a few trees that are pretty good size. Pretty sure the trees are too big for a mini-excavator or something that I could pull with a 3/4 ton truck. I just don't know which machine would be better. I need to clear the trees with root balls all together because I'll be tilling the soil to plant food plots. There are no stumps in these locations, only full trees.

My second question is what size of machine would I need for this endevour?

Essentially, the conservation department will be paying me $2800 (after the work is completed). I know that won't be enough to cover all of the cost, but I'm just trying to get these 4 acres cleared as cheaply as I can.

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Your going to have to bite the bullet and just forget it.

Renting a tracked FECON flail mulcher will cost you much more than what the $2,800.00 will get you.

Hiring a logger with a track or rubber tired shearing head to clear the four acres flush to the ground
is the best way to do this in the least amount of time. as a track mounted shear will clear 220 degrees
of swath in one pass.

Four acres may not be enough for a logger to come in and even clear it for woodchips/hog fuel.
and they will not rip out the stumps.


The problem is what to do with it all afterwards as you probably do not have much if any good
stumpage to sell to a lumber mill.
Not worth it, and you will spend a lot of money with no immediate gain as a blown hydraulic
line will stop you in your tracks and a hydraulic mess that would require a chemical spill response
and several 55 gallon spill kits.