Using a Harley Rake after a mulcher tears up my forest....

[Piston]

Hi Guys,
My wife and I are in the process of getting 25 acres of land in NH (the GRANITE state :laughing and it is currently all forested. It's been family land since the '60s and we plan to clear about 8 acres of it, and have about 4acres of lawn/field (not golf course manicured lawn) and about another 4 of dedicated field (possibly horses or miniature cattle down the road)

I will be doing the initial clearing of the trees (mostly 12"-16" dbh pines and small hardwoods) with a John Deere 410 Backhoe and my Kubota L4610 with Grapple. Next, I will bring in my neighbors 100hp skidsteer and mulching head to mulch up all the brush and small trees.

My question is what should I do for the next step? Since it's the granite state there certainly is a lot of rock, however I don't see that much but I know it's there
I want to go from that mulched state, to get ready to plant grass (or some other field grass or something, not sure yet and open to suggestions)

I have read a lot about Harley rakes and can rent one for 200 per day. Will a Harley rake be able to take virgin forest land that has never been lawn, and was just mulched, to get ready for seed?
I understand that is the intent of them, but does it work that easy? I know the soil isn't crazy packed down but it's not exactly fluffy either. Should I buy a box blade and rip as much up as I can with the scarfiers, and then harley rake it?

I guess the main question is, when the heck can I go out and rent that Harley Rake that I want to use so bad!

 

[gilbertmsg]

I would not mulch up anything if possible. Use your grapple and make burn pile. If you mulch the fresh cut wood, it will be a few years before any grass will grow. There is a lot of acid in fresh cut timber.

Eddie

 

[Putter]

You'll have a lot of stumps to deal with won't you?

 

[Scooby074]

Maybe through a post over in the land clearing forum. One of the commercial guys there has a current project just like this. Hes mulching up old roots and slash to make pasture. He's just "tilling" the material into the ground.. then theyre supposed to plant.

This may or may not go over with the ground conditions you have, at least not with a conventional mulcher. Some companies make a "rock mulcher" that could take your ground and till it, rocks and all, to end with a decent bed on which you could use the harley rake for finishing. http://www.fae-ap.com.au/content.asp?L=3&idMen=314

http://www.fae-ap.com.au/content.asp?L=3&IdMen=446

http://www.fae-ap.com.au/content.asp?L=3&idMen=312

 

[Piston]

I would not mulch up anything if possible. Use your grapple and make burn pile. If you mulch the fresh cut wood, it will be a few years before any grass will grow. There is a lot of acid in fresh cut timber.

Eddie

I think although there is a lot of acidity in the timber, there are also a lot of beneficial nutrients that would be added to the soil if I mulched it up?
I'm not positive so correct me if I'm wrong.....

 

[Piston]

You'll have a lot of stumps to deal with won't you?

Weeelll, I shouldn't :laughing: but most likely.
My plan is to knock the trees over with the backhoe, so the stump will come right out with it. This will work for 90% of the trees as they are mostly medium sized pines with shallow roots. It works quite well as I've done this many times.

I think the bigger problem would be filling in all the holes left by the stumps, not sure how I would do that? Maybe just drag some dirt from other places using a box blade or FEL?

This of course is my 'plan' and most likely won't work as planned, my projects rarely do :laughing:

 

[Ford tractor]

I would lime the snickers out of it first. Apply 4 ton per acre. Maybe more depending on how acid the soil is under the mulch. The wood fibers will break down much faster if limed. After 6 months, cut the weeds, test it, lime it again, fertilize according to the test, till it in good then seed. You may have to spray for broad leaf weeds until the grass really takes over. Depends on how bad the weeds are.

 

[Piston]

Scooby,
Those rock crushers look pretty impressive! I'm trying to do this with the heavy equipment I already have available, which I think should be more than sufficient. So does it seem like I'm on the wrong track with clearing out the large trees, then mulching, then being ready for the Harley Rake?
I prefer not to cut everything and pile it as it is a lot more of a mess that way and will take considerably longer.

I'm hoping to have the land in my name by the end of summer or so, and then start clearing shortly after that and have it clear by fall.

 

[ChuckinNH]

Your project is ambitious given the time schedule, and amount of land involved. I wouuldn't have thought that you could push a 16" pine over with your backhoe, but it would sure help with the stumps if you could. Be careful out there!

 

[Gordon Gould]

When you start pushing trees over you will see what you have for subsurface rocks. Lots of NH is quite sandy. It is not all granite. 8 acres of downed trees will make for an awful lot of mulching. The mulch does have nutrients but not until it decomposes ( along time for softwood ) The mulch will lock up the available nitrogen in the soil as it decomposes. Grass makes its own nitrogen once it gets going. Fertilize it good to get it started because there will be little nitrogen available.

 

[The Haymaker]

I would not mulch up anything if possible. Use your grapple and make burn pile. If you mulch the fresh cut wood, it will be a few years before any grass will grow. There is a lot of acid in fresh cut timber.

Eddie

Oddly enough, we have a LOT of sand on half the property. Fine and consistent as mortar sand without so much as a pebble. It was actually mined during the construction of I95. Up until 10 years ago there were still portion that did not grow grass. A covering of chips from a local tree service who needed a place to dispose of them had grass growing on the little deserts the next season. I'm guessing they held moisture and any seeds that blew through.

E

 

[Piston]

It'll be interesting to see what starts popping up after I clear enough for the sunlight to get through, I'm sure I'll have all sorts of new hardwood sprouts and probably a lot of random brush/weeds. I'll keep it mowed good with the brush hog as well.

I think I'm gonna need to invest in a box blade with scarifiers since I don't have one quite yet. Would it be a good idea to scarify the heck out of the soil after the mulcher goes through but before I harley rake it?

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Bush pile the slash for a year or two; then chip it. Use the chips as mulch, or spread and till under.

You're lucky with the sand. I've got nothing but a thin layer of black soil on top of glacial till boulders.

 

[Piston]

I was told by someone that a disc would be a good choice to break up a lot of the hard pack before running the Harley Rake over it? Would this be a good choice?
I know nothing about what a disc is capable of.

 

[JohninCT]

If you're going to be using a harley rake why would you want go through the trouble to try to loosen things up? Isn't one of the purposes of a harley rake to break up hard pan, fluff and smooth and windrow rocks and debris out to the side?

 

[Piston]

If you're going to be using a harley rake why would you want go through the trouble to try to loosen things up? Isn't one of the purposes of a harley rake to break up hard pan, fluff and smooth and windrow rocks and debris out to the side?

I don't know
That's why I'm asking....I'm really not sure what to do, or what a Harley Rake is capable of. I've read that the roots and small stumps will get caught in the rotating drums?
I've never used, or even seen, a Harley Rake in use. So the less steps I need to take the better

 

[JohninCT]

I don't know
That's why I'm asking....I'm really not sure what to do, or what a Harley Rake is capable of. I've read that the roots and small stumps will get caught in the rotating drums?
I've never used, or even seen, a Harley Rake in use. So the less steps I need to take the better

Check out this series of videos on the Woods brand harley rake. They will give you a pretty good idea of what it's capable of.

YouTube - ‪Woods Equipment - PowerRake Part 1 of 4‬‏

As for stumps, you said that you were digging them out with backhoe or having them mulched. Having done that, you should be able to run the harley over everthing and get it all raked out and ready for seed. An occasional "missed" stump is one thing but trying to run the harley over lots of stumps is sure to give you nothing but grief.

 

[jenkinsph]

I don't know
That's why I'm asking....I'm really not sure what to do, or what a Harley Rake is capable of. I've read that the roots and small stumps will get caught in the rotating drums?
I've never used, or even seen, a Harley Rake in use. So the less steps I need to take the better

If you run the mulcher first and chew up everything you can then rent the Harley rake for a day and try it out. My concern would be with too much debris in the windrows using the Harley rake, I would rather keep the small debris spread out. Let the wood chips and small pieces break down on the ground with time and add some extra nitrogen fertilizer. Get some soil samples with the mulch to see what is recommended and recheck every six months. If spread out and in contact with the ground and fertilizer it will all be fixed with a little time.

About the stump holes, I would keep them filled in as you work through an area if you are in an area with alot of rain. The stump holes can fill with water and get the equipment bogged down. A heavy duty boxblade with the scarifiers in the up position may work better to smooth over the surface.

Depending on your locale you might wan't to consider planting something like rye grass which doesn't need alot of seed cover. You can broadcast it with a spin spreader this fall. I should also point out that cows walking around in this area can help with beating all the debris into submission too.

 

[Carl_NH]

Piston,

I just completed a similar project on 2 acres on glacial till here on the coast - we cut the pines in 09 (about 65-70 trees 24-30" Typ), then stumped early last year - had 2-100 yard loads of stumps from that process. Was left with a rough grade from the excavator of rocks, roots and pine stubs (the little nubs from the trees) all over the place.

So I had a friend with a 6' Harley rake on his Kubota L48 to attempt a clean up of the debris - long story short the harley rake didnt work out since it kept pulling up more rocks and root debris and skipped over embedded rocks and was beating up the harley rake a lot.

Went to plan 2 in early 2010 - used the FEL and combination with the york rake to gather up the loose debris and rocks into two large piles which then settled over last fall and in the winter I burned these root/rock piles over the winter. The end result of the york raking left a decent surface but after all the stumping and excavator work the soil was poor.

So I brought in 80 yards of 3 yr composted material (left over till and dirt from a bark mulch operation - it was free) to level out the area and cover the ledge then seeded and planted some rye grass as cover last year. Then this spring put down 80 yards of loam again and seeded / fertilized.

Long story short - it takes time and depends on your sub surface (rocky or sandy) will determine the best approach. I think if rocky or has ledge the mulcher may not work to well. As others have said you will need a lot of fertilizer and lime and probably a good amount of fill/topsoil to level things out.

 

[daveinnh]

Piston:

We had a similar site. Had 6-7 acres cleared on a 58 acre site. Back in 2003 the value of the sawlogs paid for the clearing and slash chipping of 16-30" DBH pines; and we had several logs set aside for out T-F house. (We considered a recent tree stand thinning but the value of sawlogs won't even pay for the work, so we'll wait).

A second crew mob'ed 2 excavators and a second root/stump chipper for 3 weeks. They buried some rocks and created piles from others.

I hired a neighbor/contractor to bulldoze and York rake the root chip piles. Then applied Blue Seal Equigraze and lots of lime. Second York rake event to mix and imbed.

Consider hiring an excavator crew IMHO.

PM me if you'd like to see this later in August

Dave