PTO mulcher on a to-be-bought tractor

[mikester]

Hi there, new here! We bought a former ornamental tree farm, and would like to convert a lot of it to pasture. There's perhaps 50 acres of hardwood trees, most from 5-8", some up to 12". Where we are leaving groves, we need to thin extensively, as they were meant to be harvested years ago and are far too close together. And there are hundreds if not thousands of volunteer Bradford pears that are too big for a brush mower.

I was hoping to save money (as this is a side project for now, not my job), and combine a good piece of tree clearing equipment with a general purpose tractor that I'd want anyways. I've cleared a little with a chainsaw, and considered an 8" PTO wood chipper, but then I have stumps (LOTS) to deal with, so I'd also need to grind thousands of stumps to have it tractorable (I think?). So then I was thinking based on a thread here that a tractor + a used PTO mulcher would be a good idea. I found a used 85" PTO mulcher, which the Fecon rep said would need 100hp or so. So I'm now looking for a tractor with a 1000 PTO, and thinking < 20k would be good, but maybe could go to 30 if need be. That has me looking at 70's/80's JD 4240, 4450, 4640 with cabs. Be great if it had a loader/grapple. Thinking I'll need to add some wire mesh at the back - on trees big enough that I'd be worried about knocking them over in place, I could saw them, then use the mulcher to grind the stump. I did find a forestry New Holland TB110 (google that, and the first match shows it, I can't post links) nearby, but it seems the cage would prevent use of a loader.

Would the older JDs work for this? The land is relatively flat. Would you do it differently? I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the possible routes since I'm starting from scratch.

Id strongly recommend either renting or buying a used 20-30 ton excavator with thumb and bucket teeth or root rake. The trees will come out in one piece root and all and you can shake off the dirt on the root ball.

You can also hire out contractors with this kind of equipment and large tub grinders that will grind everything and you end up with no roots and a nice pile of mulch.

As other posters have noted this is extremely hard work for equipment and you are going to break that utility tractor and any attachments. AG class tractors are not made for that kind of work. In the alternative buy a used full sized construction TLB. The excavator will be way faster.

 

[yumbrad]

A ctl will take out trees that size pretty quick with a stump bucket. Pulling 6 hardwood trees is about the limits of my machine without digging the roots. I have the Danuser intimidator puller and it痴 an awesome tool.

Thanks, that's good to know. What CTL do you have? Would the flow rate / size of machine change what would be pullable?

 

[yumbrad]

Id strongly recommend either renting or buying a used 20-30 ton excavator with thumb and bucket teeth or root rake. The trees will come out in one piece root and all and you can shake off the dirt on the root ball.

You can also hire out contractors with this kind of equipment and large tub grinders that will grind everything and you end up with no roots and a nice pile of mulch.

As other posters have noted this is extremely hard work for equipment and you are going to break that utility tractor and any attachments. AG class tractors are not made for that kind of work. In the alternative buy a used full sized construction TLB. The excavator will be way faster.

An excavator sounds like it might be the way to go if I can find one in the budget. But you're saying 20-30 ton! Wow, I was looking at one that was like 7 ton. I guess it's always a tradeoff between speed and cost, since the big one could rip out bigger trees without digging around the roots. But maintenance, moving the thing, etc. would be impractical for me I think. I could tow a 7 ton excavator behind my diesel pickup.

 

[yumbrad]

An excavator sounds like it might be the way to go if I can find one in the budget. But you're saying 20-30 ton! Wow, I was looking at one that was like 7 ton. I guess it's always a tradeoff between speed and cost, since the big one could rip out bigger trees without digging around the roots. But maintenance, moving the thing, etc. would be impractical for me I think. I could tow a 7 ton excavator behind my diesel pickup.

So the one I was looking at was yet another craigslist scam (I've checked out so many listings that are a "good deal" only to find that they won't answer any questions through the anonymized email system, just want my phone number and email address for some nefarious purpose). Not sure how I'd move a 20 tone machine, but there are some that might work out there it seems, assuming I could resell down the road.