I've been getting overwhelmed with invasives like buckthorn overtaking my fencelines and I've finally taken some action.
I fabbed up a 36" wide root rake bucket based on the geometry of my 24" trenching bucket. My goal was to have it work wth my existing hydraulic thumb without any interference. I used 1/2" AR400 for the rake tines on 6" centers. Finally tried it out yesterday and I am pleased with how well it works so far. I was a little worried about how well the M59 BH would handle a 36" wide bucket.
I am pleasantly surprised at how it does an excellent job penetrating my sandy soil and root masses. The M59 powers it into the soil with ease allowing me to get the rake under the dense buckthorn root masses, lift them out and shake off excess topsoil. I included a couple of photos of my test dig in an area where I ground down the buckthorn to ground level using a forestry mulcher. My last photo shows the root masses I yanked out - notice the lack of topsoil in my bucket.
You can see from the photos I'm loosing at least 20 feet around my fence lines to this buckthorn menace. Grinding this stuff just seems to make it grow back 100x thicker. Doesn't burn, doesn't chip, I hate this stuff.
The 36" bucket width seems to work well for landscape levelling. I cut 1" deep Vee notches into the 2" with cutting teeth on my rake tips. Works great for roughing up hard pack soil before hand raking to finish.
I've also tried it on some small 10" maple and 6" honey locust. Takes out roots with ease.
I can post more photos if anyone is interested.
I fabbed up a 36" wide root rake bucket based on the geometry of my 24" trenching bucket. My goal was to have it work wth my existing hydraulic thumb without any interference. I used 1/2" AR400 for the rake tines on 6" centers. Finally tried it out yesterday and I am pleased with how well it works so far. I was a little worried about how well the M59 BH would handle a 36" wide bucket.
I am pleasantly surprised at how it does an excellent job penetrating my sandy soil and root masses. The M59 powers it into the soil with ease allowing me to get the rake under the dense buckthorn root masses, lift them out and shake off excess topsoil. I included a couple of photos of my test dig in an area where I ground down the buckthorn to ground level using a forestry mulcher. My last photo shows the root masses I yanked out - notice the lack of topsoil in my bucket.
You can see from the photos I'm loosing at least 20 feet around my fence lines to this buckthorn menace. Grinding this stuff just seems to make it grow back 100x thicker. Doesn't burn, doesn't chip, I hate this stuff.
The 36" bucket width seems to work well for landscape levelling. I cut 1" deep Vee notches into the 2" with cutting teeth on my rake tips. Works great for roughing up hard pack soil before hand raking to finish.
I've also tried it on some small 10" maple and 6" honey locust. Takes out roots with ease.
I can post more photos if anyone is interested.
