Locust Trees are Nasty

Believer · Oct 7, 2014

Clearing the pasture of locust trees. I have a loader mounted tree shear which makes cutting them down easy. I have a 42 hp Brush Bandit chipper which grinds them up. But getting those devils into the chipper is hard work, and slow. Maybe chipping isn't worth it, but I was doing that to avoid large piles laying around. What do other folks do with trash trees cleared out of pastures? I can't burn safely, I'm afraid of starting the county on fire. After I get through the locust, I've got about 50 acres of 3-10 ft cedars to clear; those are much easier to feed into the chipper.

jejeosborne · Oct 7, 2014

If there are any sizable pieces, that is some of the best firewood there is. BTU per cord is one of the best and very little ash. I love the stuff!

Capricious · Oct 7, 2014

Believer said:
Clearing the pasture of locust trees. I have a loader mounted tree shear which makes cutting them down easy. I have a 42 hp Brush Bandit chipper which grinds them up. But getting those devils into the chipper is hard work, and slow. Maybe chipping isn't worth it, but I was doing that to avoid large piles laying around. What do other folks do with trash trees cleared out of pastures? I can't burn safely, I'm afraid of starting the county on fire. After I get through the locust, I've got about 50 acres of 3-10 ft cedars to clear; those are much easier to feed into the chipper.

When i started re-clearing my land (it had been bull dozed about 10 years before, but then ignored afterwards) I was very wary of burning. But I developed my own little system of burning which, while quite slow and labor intensive, disposed of hundreds and hundreds of cedars/saplings/whatever leaving little trace of their existance.

I would cut and and haul all of the cedars and pile them in one pile, and everything else in another pile, and I would burn (always in the same spot) between the two piles. the cedars, with just 2 or 3 weeks of drying, would go up like torches, and I would use them to "layer" the other other stuff which generally did not burn as well.

I would feed the fire manually, pulling from both piles as necessary, and so I could control how big the fire got. Sometimes I would allow the fire to burn down, and then re-arange unburned trunks and stumps, and then pile on more fuel.

I always had a few buckets of water around, but by keeping the fire small, by always burning on the same spot (so there was no ground cover to burn), and by burning on a Saturday when I would be spending the night, and not departing and leaving the ashes unattended, I never had any problems.

I should add that the biggest trees I was dealing with were about 4 or 5 inches diameter; by far the most numerous were the Ozarks cedars (which i am told are not really cedars, but that's what everyone calls them- I burned hundreds and hundreds of them over 3 years)

EDITED TO ADD: The main thing is to watch the wind- you don't want to be burning on a windy day. At least where I was, morning was always less windy than afternoon.

RandyT · Oct 7, 2014

What you are talking about is Eastern Red Cedar which is actually a Juniper. true cedars have flattened needles, like you smashed them with a hammer.

Capricious · Oct 7, 2014

One other option is to hire someone with a mulching head on a skid steer or a forestry tractor.

I am looking at maybe "pushing" a road 1000 feet into the woods and had been considering hiring a dozer to do it, but after seeing what some of these big mulchers can do I am now leaning that way. Dozers leave big piles, and i don't want big piles to deal with.

rd_macgregor · Oct 7, 2014

Capricious said:
One other option is to hire someone with a mulching head on a skid steer or a forestry tractor.

I am looking at maybe "pushing" a road 1000 feet into the woods and had been considering hiring a dozer to do it, but after seeing what some of these big mulchers can do I am now leaning that way. Dozers leave big piles, and i don't want big piles to deal with.

Yeah, those machines are awesome. I do wonder how much it ends up costing to clear tree-infested old fields or to grind back vegetation trying to take over the edges of my fields.

Capricious · Oct 7, 2014

rd_macgregor said:
I do wonder how much it ends up costing to clear tree-infested old fields or to grind back vegetation trying to take over the edges of my fields.

Depends upon the job. Here is some "per hour" pricing, in USD:

Pricing | Missouri Land Clearing

2manyrocks · Oct 7, 2014

Locust trees make rot resistant fence posts. If you really have locust trees, it would be a waste to knock them down instead of using them.

k0ua · Oct 7, 2014

I call those Eastern Red Cedars we have here in the Ozarks. "gasoline trees".. Because that is how they burn, like they are soaked in gasoline. Even a green one burns rapidly, and a dry one is phenomenal, how it goes up in flame.

Capricious · Oct 7, 2014

k0ua said:
I call those Eastern Red Cedars we have here in the Ozarks. "gasoline trees".. Because that is how they burn, like they are soaked in gasoline. Even a green one burns rapidly, and a dry one is phenomenal, how it goes up in flame.

Oh, yea. They burn. Only for a minute or so, but what a show.

By layering-in some cedars, I could even get green saplings & such to burn, when they would not have burned on their own.

Trying to figure out an easy way to "de-bark" some small cedars in order to make walking sticks. A few decades ago i knew someone in Branson who made cedar "Ozark Walking Sticks" for sale at stores around town. Would like to make me a couple.