Re: What CK20\'s with new grapples eat for breakfast?
Ah, brush management. I'll throw in my two cents.
An amazingly huge amount of brush is generated by land clearing when the tool you use collects and piles the slash. So much slash is generated that you end up with a big problem after only a small amount of clearing.
A couple of lessons I've learned: First clear out a spot to make your slash pile and then pile the slash. Do not push slash into rooted trees or stumps. Keep your piles as dirt free as possible to help them dry up sooner and to keep the topsoil where it belongs. For burning, stack the pile clean, tight, and as tall as you can. Several smaller piles with a mix of large and small slash is good if you're burning them yourself. Make the piles as close as possible to where the slash came from, extra distance takes lots of time to haul slash, if you intend to burn create the burn piles away from saved live trees.
With the tractor I have a process. I go through the woods brushhogging anything that can be chopped up and then push over trees that I can push over. I chainsaw the small stuff off of the fallen tree for shredding and then haul the tree and stump to a long narrow stack of logs. The stump stays on. If I can't push the tree over then I leave it for a logger. If I need it gone now then I saw it down and drag it off. Minimize new stumps, the logger will push the whole tree over with his excavator. My slash piles are now much smaller since a majority of the old style brush piles is a tangle of small material that can be chopped up with a brush hog. The only pile is large stuff that stacks very tight and can be salvaged for firewood or left to rot. By chopping up most everything with the brushhog you are left with a lot of organic duff on the ground that can be tilled in or left to rot. Much less ground disturbance too. The grapple would be very handy for picking up and moving stuff that is not choppable to a nice stack. Getting off to chain drag these things one trunk at a time isn't fun and you end up trying to balance trees on the bucket teeth.
Bah, need to start a new thread for this. I took some wicked good pictures of brushhog chopping and clearing.