Chipper Advice on PTO Chipper

[oosik]

That's one of the primary reasons I chip all the pine trees I thin out of my stands.

VOLUME REDUCTION. I don;t give a tinkers dam about how much chips I get. As I chip - I swivel the discharge chute about 15 degrees every fifteen minuets or so. Helps distribute them. Every spring I will go thru my Ponderosa pine stands and thin them out. Anything 6" or less on the butt - down the intake chute.

This project takes a month +/-. I will end up chipping 950 to1200 small pines.

 

[oosik]

I have a process that seems to work best for me.

- go thru half a dozen or more stands - identify and fall all that are 6" or less on the butt

- go back thru the stands and drag all the fallen trees out to large piles. This is, by far, the most difficult part. When I get done felling, each stand looks like a giant game of Pick-Up-Sticks. Trees lying in all direction, intertwined and multiple layers deep.

- back the chipper up to the pile - pull off the pile and chip.

 

[N80]

What is your local market for two units - 15 cubic yards- of delivered chips/mulch?

I do not remember the figure but our neighbor in town got mulch delivered. I asked the price and was staggered. Was it real "mulch"? I don't know but it looks like what comes out of my chipper with some age on it.

But that's not even the real issue. Where my cabin is no one will deliver. Could I drive to the next country with my flatbed trailer (with a wooden sides in the stake pockets)? Yes. And pay top dollar and have to unload by hand.

No thanks.

One, was how little you actually get out of a small 22 HP chipper for the amount of work you put into it.

In my limited experience I found just the opposite to be true. Of course my tractor is 45hp and I don't know which chipper you used but when I got my assembled I spent maybe 5 minutes feeding brush into it and was quite surprised at the little pile of chips in that short of time. Plus, time is not an issue here. I like projects. I like working outdoors. I have no deadlines in this regard.

Second, in my area, you can burn non-usable stuff in a wood pile: Which is much easier.

I can burn and do. But there are periods of time when you simply can't. There is no burn ban in effect right now but there probably should be. Drought since July. Dry as a bone here. So there are limits on that. Plus, it isn't like building and tending a fire are labor free activities. And in the summer tending a big fire is pure misery to me.

The economy of scale that a commercial vendor can put out, works to my advantage in the place I live in: The PNW.

Agreed. I think it is wise to work out the work load, time, initial expense, potential savings, whether it is a hobby or not, etc. For me, it makes sense. And with the prospect of saw mill scraps it makes even more sense. And again, for me, this is all a hobby. I enjoy this kind of work so that has to be figured in as well. And all-in I suspect it is still cheaper than golf.

However, if I come to find that this was an unwise purchase, and it well may be, I suspect on the current market I could get most of my money back real quick and easy.

 

[Torvy]

I think some people confuse mulch with soil amendments. Wood chips are a type of mulch. Mulch is literally a covering for soil. Some mulch is even rubber or plastic. So all wood chips are "real" mulch.

mulch

Definition, Synonyms, Translations of mulch by The Free Dictionary

www.thefreedictionary.com

 

[JasperFrank]

Regional Linguistics is interesting. In my area we do differentiate "Mulch" from "Chip/Bark" as ground cover. Mulch, if you say that to someone, means 1/4 inch or so smaller bits of some sort of organic ground covering: Like ground up leaves. And one has to be more specific about ground cover if they want Chips or Bark ground cover, which is larger bits of trees. Sometimes it can get confusing, as people will say they use whole leaves as mulch and other whole things like straw as mulch. But in context, the meaning here is more specific if you are ordering a ground cover. Mulch is always the finer material. Chip/Bark is the larger material. In a sense, we have changed the word "mulch" to mean a further process in reducing the size of the material to very small bits: Which is different then its original meaning as general ground cover.

N80, you gave some very good info on YOUR particular situation. in YOUR place the decision you made, is thoughtful and sound. My 2 cent, was just MY situation, very different than yours. Hope it all works out. If any advice, I'd say, learn what your chipper can take with out loading down. Don't try to feed it as fast as you can work or ask it to take the biggest it is rated to take, and no loose clothing. If and when it gets loaded, use a smooth push pole, with nothing that can catch your jacket to clear it.

 

[grsthegreat]

for me it ios not quicker to burn, as i have to haul all the stuff out to a clearing to burn. then i have to stand by the entire time its burning with a hose. i can chip right in the woods. actually is faster. also here, they close open burning way earlier than they close logging due to fires.

 

[RoyJackson]

for me it iit's not quicker to burn, as i have to haul all the stuff out to a clearing to burn. then i have to stand by the entire time its burning with a hose. i can chip right in the woods. actually is faster. also here, they close open burning way earlier than they close logging due to fires.

About the same here...no time or interest in burning since I'd have no access to water if it get's out of control, plus, the chips I do get are great around the trees. The hardest part is bringing any material up close to where I need the chips. I've got a Gator, so I can chip right into the bed....just haven't done that yet...or just leave them down on the field

 

[grsthegreat]

i chip into my kawasaki mule and move it around property. and i also spread it on the trails.

 

[N80]

N80, you gave some very good info on YOUR particular situation. in YOUR place the decision you made, is thoughtful and sound.

I hope so but the proof is in the pudding. We'll see.

 

[ning]

for me it ios not quicker to burn, as i have to haul all the stuff out to a clearing to burn. then i have to stand by the entire time its burning with a hose. i can chip right in the woods. actually is faster. also here, they close open burning way earlier than they close logging due to fires.

I can definitely burn faster than what I hear chipping takes, but most of the year (even right now) I can't burn; I'm definitely not going to haul this stuff to the transfer center (used to be "the dump" in the old days).

I can get chips for free occasionally, though I can't be picky about what's in the pile. It's not going on my garden regardless; I use it for soil building and to cover bare dirt.

For the moment, I'm still burning, as I haven't decided if it's worth getting a 6-8" tractor mounted chipper which may or may not take much of my scrub oak without lots of cutting (some of it looks like the old "pipes" screen saver, literally one right angle after another), or if I should buy a commercial 6-9" unit and sell it later, if I should pile stuff up and rent a chipper occasionally, or if I should just burn it all.

Piling it all up and chipping "later" risks it all getting tangled and making it yet more work to pull apart to be able to toss it into the chipper... burning is pretty low effort here when it's allowed, as I can just grab a big pile (usually 3-4 hand piles that I've crushed together with my forks) and toss it on the fire, watch it for a few minutes as it burns super hot down to almost nothing, then go get another.