Best way to clear unwanted trees from pasture

[Jchonline]

If you are running horses I would remove all trees with stumps and re-grade it all. If you leave stumps, some will stick up and make mowing a pain. Then they will rot and leave holes for your horses to break legs in.

 

[Ed27]

Considering this is a owning, operating thread it seems you have a good plan for your needs. Not sure you need the stump killer for the cedars.

Most of the trees are Bradford pears, some cedars. The pears will grow back from root suckers. If you keep fresh sprouts mowed down, it will eventually starve the roots and kill them. The herbicide application is a single painting of the stump, will kill the roots, and tricloyr will not hurt the grass.

 

[Ed27]

If you are running horses I would remove all trees with stumps and re-grade it all. If you leave stumps, some will stick up and make mowing a pain. Then they will rot and leave holes for your horses to break legs in.

The TurboSaw cuts tress at ground level, so no stump sticking up. The stump will be about 5-6" in diameter and will hopefully not make much of a depression when it rots, but if it does I will surely need to fill.

 

[mljenkins]

I would get a price on forestry mulching. I have 20 acres here and about half needs cleared. I am going to hire a pro with a mulcher with an actual dedicated machine (reycon? I think, it has metal tracks like a dozer) and not a smaller skid steer with an attachment. The guy can be done in less than 5 days and his cost if I have it done in the winter is well below my investment in new tractor attachments or equipment rental. They usually give free quotes so I would strongly recommend it.

The guy I spoke to posts photos on his Facebook page and the results are amazing. If you push the trees out as I had planned you have to go back and fill and level the holes and get it seeded before things erode, plus you have to dispose of the trees. If you cut them, you’ll have to grind the stumps down where a mulcher can do that to ground level. I’ve just decided I don’t have the time and don’t need the equipment I would invest in to justify not hiring it out. Plus I just want it all done at once so I can fence it all and call the project done.

 

[Ed27]

no question, pay someone with a large excavator, grade/reseed, you will love the results - everything else is a waste of time/money

Did you do this on some of your property? About how many acres? How much money did it cost? Did you burn the trees? After you graded and reseeded, how long did it take until you could graze livestock on it? Thanks!

 

[radios1]

The TurboSaw cuts tress at ground level, so no stump sticking up. The stump will be about 5-6" in diameter and will hopefully not make much of a depression when it rots, but if it does I will surely need to fill.

yeah, probably just a foot deep..

 

[Ed27]

Another option to the herbicide, and you may laugh, but, get 5-6 goats, to pasture along with the horses. They'll pretty well clean up any unwanted broad leaf vegetation the horses will not eat anyway. I got 2, about 15 years ago to pasture with my horses, and clean up a section of pasture that had a lot of poison ivy, black berry brier's, honeysuckle, and multi-flora rose. Plus some trees stumps that shot up water sprouts in the new fence line. They love that stuff..!! The great thing is, they will browse on it all winter. Great companion animals for "most" horses. I had a Tennessee Walker mare that wasn't too fond of them getting in her space. But the others got along fine with them. Plus, if you hay the horse won't eat. And, depending on the fence you have, or will use, if they can get their nose under it, they will keep the fence line clear.

The Amish in this area that bought old run down, overgrown farms, would bring in herds of 25-30 goats, and turn them loose. Within a couple of years, they had it pretty well eaten down, and made a lot of useful pasture, for cattle, and their horses.

I live in rural east TN. Lots of hilly land around here and many people have woods incredibly thick with poison ivy, blackberries, etc. One of my neighbors did just as you said. He has some very steep property that is impossible to get to. He turned a herd of goats loose in the spring, let goats work it spring, summer, and fall, then worked it in the winter when ivy, ticks, and chiggers are dead.

 

[Ed27]

I would get a price on forestry mulching. I have 20 acres here and about half needs cleared. I am going to hire a pro with a mulcher with an actual dedicated machine (reycon? I think, it has metal tracks like a dozer) and not a smaller skid steer with an attachment. The guy can be done in less than 5 days and his cost if I have it done in the winter is well below my investment in new tractor attachments or equipment rental. They usually give free quotes so I would strongly recommend it.

The guy I spoke to posts photos on his Facebook page and the results are amazing. If you push the trees out as I had planned you have to go back and fill and level the holes and get it seeded before things erode, plus you have to dispose of the trees. If you cut them, you’ll have to grind the stumps down where a mulcher can do that to ground level. I’ve just decided I don’t have the time and don’t need the equipment I would invest in to justify not hiring it out. Plus I just want it all done at once so I can fence it all and call the project done.

After I bush hog around all the tress, I will have a better idea what I am up against. My son has a drone and can take some good video of the whole property. I can then show this to some excavator and forestry mulcher crews and see how much it will cost.

 

[EddieWalker]

The TurboSaw cuts tress at ground level, so no stump sticking up. The stump will be about 5-6" in diameter and will hopefully not make much of a depression when it rots, but if it does I will surely need to fill.

I have no personal experience with a TurboSaw, but suspect that it's very expensive. I do have a lot of experience dealing with stumps and cutting trees down to ground level and regretting it.

How long will the teeth last on the TurboSaw when they hit dirt? How much is it to replace the teeth? How hard is it to replace the teeth?

In my experience, when cutting trees off at the ground with a chainsaw right at ground level, or even a little below and ruining the chain, in a year, the rain will erode the soil around that stump to the point that you will hit it with your mower once the grass comes in. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them that you will regret doing this. Maybe if you use bright orange paint it will make it easier to avoid them?

The first few years of owning my land I wasted a lot of time doing it the hard way. Now I just dig everything out all at once. Tree and stump. Then I fill in the holes that need filling in and compact them right away with my front tires and built it up just a little so water runs away from there. If you ever dig out a big tree or stump and let water get in there, it is impossible to fill it with dirt and get it to be solid. A year later while mowing, you will get stuck in that spot!!!!

If you have the money for the Turbo Saw, reconsider buying a backhoe or excavator to dig everything out and then sell it when you are done. Or rent one big enough to get it all done as quickly as possible. Probably 12 to 15 tonnes or bigger to be really productive. 8 tonne machines will get it done, but they will be slower and probably not cost effective if renting. I think a 8 tonne excavator is about equal in digging ability to a full sized backhoe, but with the advantage of being able to turn 360 degrees. The trade off is that the backhoe can travel from place to place a lot faster. Or rethink hiring it out and having it done by a pro who will get it done the fastest with the cleanest results.

Your plan to mulch up what you take out sounds nice, but it's adding a massive amount of work to your project. If you think that you can do this in a year, in reality, it will take 5 times as long. Putting trees and branches through a mulcher is good for small projects and home gardeners, but not for clearing land in a timely manner. Hauling it off somewhere to dispose of doesn't make any sense at all.

You need to think about having a burn pile. Nothing is faster at getting rid of trees.

 

[searcyfarms]

Did you do this on some of your property? About how many acres? How much money did it cost? Did you burn the trees? After you graded and reseeded, how long did it take until you could graze livestock on it? Thanks!

I had a large excavator/dozer come in and remove trees on 6 acres in our creek bottom, 90% were soft maple. My cousin signed it up for edge feathering/erosion control with the FSA office and in 10 yrs he never maintained it. I purchased the property last yr from him because he lives out of state and didnt want to deal with it anymore. We negotiated the price of the cleanup into the price of the land.

I also had a ditch cut/drain tube/tile installed to drain back into the creek from the low area in the field after flooding or heavy rains. I was able to get 3 acres of it resigned in edge feathering after the cleanup. I reseeded it with warm season indian grass. That cost me 225 bucks for the seed, did the seeding myself. I also had another 4 acres on the other side of the creek to put in so did it all at the same time. I rented the no till drill from the FSA office to see it with. $175.00 I had trees 8 inches thick and 25+ feet tall. It took them 4 days for the trees, one day to push them all up and put in drain tube all to the tune of 5000 bucks and i was able to write those expenses off for farm so it was a no brainer and i didnt have to do much but disk/seed. Took me about 4 hours to hook up disk, disk it, remove disk, hook up planter, plant it, etc.......

More than worth my time/effort and cost. $5000 + $225 + $175 + tractor fuel/time = Priceless !!!!



if you look closer you can see where it wrapped around in the finger area and how there was NO foliage on the trees that were left up to a certain height and a couple of the trees still standing along the edge that are an idea of the size not to mention one of the piles there behind my tractor/drill. There were 3 piles like that I have yet to burn up. not sure i will, great place for critters to make residence. I did this last yr end of april first of may. I had not picked up some of the loose sticks that were left yet in the one area I wanted to do that before i disked it so i didnt get htem caught up in the disk. Dad wanted to do it with his small disk and other tractor to give it a lil work out since it doesnt get used much. This was farm ground so it needed to be clean but I can tell you from all the tree removal I have done with cedars/oak/maple with my SS and a tree puller, rotary saw, shoving them over, digging them out, either a mulcher/fecon or excavation is the way to go.