Best way to clear unwanted trees from pasture

[AndyR2]

Having just dug out two substantial maple stumps, I can commiserate. Just got an MTL RK5 grapple which is the bees knees on small stuff and have been looking at rippers. A ripper will do a much better job at cutting through the roots than the backhoe, though I have a hard time justifying one right now with all the other work waiting to be done. Started out by looking for aggressive backhoe teeth for the Woods 9000 and then saw the Klingon devices.

 

[ovrszd]

What kind of tree(s) and what was the diameter of the stumps?

Any kind 4" or bigger.

 

[rScotty]

What kind of tree(s) and what was the diameter of the stumps?

I don't know about Ovrszd's trees. Ours are mostly pine, spruce, and fir with a few cottonwoods down by the creek. All slow to grow, and even slower for stumps to go away. There are some gigantic willows, but they aren't hurt by a flood.
One big difference between Ed27's trees and ours is that his are a pest and ours were a blessing. Not to mention that ours were dead and his not. I'd feel different if ours sprouted everywhere or had thorns. So it depends on what you want to do with the land.
rScotty

 

[My Gym]

rScotty, your location states Rural Mountain Colorado. Your soil conditions are arid, dusty, sandy with very little ground cover. Stumps can last hundreds of years. Rain and winds will erode the soft soil around the stump. I can imagine your land looking like monument valley. Tree shears and chainsaws do not cut at ground level but actually slightly above and are not truly flat. The lowest part of the Turbosaw is the saw blade and it will actually cut ½-1” below ground level, and very flat. It is like walking pavers in a garden. No trip edge and you can mow over easily. With the blade the lowest part, you can shave or plane off top tops of stumps that do become exposed. The stump in moist soil and covered with debris, the stumps tend to rot quickly, like untreated fence posts in moist soil. The turbosaw is limited in the size of the trees it can cut, but with the mounting of the saw blade, you can shave off the tops of much larger stumps.

 

[Ed27]

Update.

I've been doing a lot of tree cutting with my new Kubota M7060HD12 and TurboSaw. They are both beasts! I am working them (and me!) very hard in 90+ degree weather and no issues. I love the tractor and the saw! I have 39 hours on the tractor so far. Have been doing a lot of bush hogging too. Cut down 321 Bradford pears so far. ...with many, many, many more to go.

 

[rScotty]

rScotty, your location states Rural Mountain Colorado. Your soil conditions are arid, dusty, sandy with very little ground cover. Stumps can last hundreds of years. Rain and winds will erode the soft soil around the stump. I can imagine your land looking like monument valley. Tree shears and chainsaws do not cut at ground level but actually slightly above and are not truly flat. The lowest part of the Turbosaw is the saw blade and it will actually cut ｽ-1 below ground level, and very flat. It is like walking pavers in a garden. No trip edge and you can mow over easily. With the blade the lowest part, you can shave or plane off top tops of stumps that do become exposed. The stump in moist soil and covered with debris, the stumps tend to rot quickly, like untreated fence posts in moist soil. The turbosaw is limited in the size of the trees it can cut, but with the mounting of the saw blade, you can shave off the tops of much larger stumps.

Thanks for the description. From how you describe the Turbosaw action I can see where it would work to remove stumps like you say.

Yes, you've described our soil conditions pretty well. There is not much organic material and no clay or "dirt" at all. Mostly a sand and gravel made from granite particles as it weathers from the mountain sides. Very hard and abrasive. It can be crushed finer, but not really compacted. The growing layer is right on top. Our forests here are the kind you can walk through even without doing any clearing. There is almost no underbrush and the trees are spaced apart. So clearing land here is not difficult.

As abrasive as our soil is here, I couldn't imagine that that Ed was going to have much luck using a saw with teeth that deliberately runs in the dirt.

But then last week I was down in Western Arkansas visiting friends and amazed all over again at how soft their dirt is and how dense the forest is there. Their soil is completely different. It's soft, and will stain clothes; ours won't. With the way things grow there, those southern people really do have a whole different problem clearing land. Right next to any cleared area their woods are so thick.... such a tangle of growth of vines, trees, and shrubs there that it would be an effort for a body to force itself more than a few feet in any direction. Even a bulldozer would bog. I can't imagine trying to walk through those woods.

It's a whole different problem from what we have here, and the turbosaw looks like a great solution.
rScotty

 

[buck12]

Thanks for the description. From how you describe the Turbosaw action I can see where it would work to remove stumps like you say.

Yes, you've described our soil conditions pretty well. There is not much organic material and no clay or "dirt" at all. Mostly a sand and gravel made from granite particles as it weathers from the mountain sides. Very hard and abrasive. It can be crushed finer, but not really compacted. The growing layer is right on top. Our forests here are the kind you can walk through even without doing any clearing. There is almost no underbrush and the trees are spaced apart. So clearing land here is not difficult.

As abrasive as our soil is here, I couldn't imagine that that Ed was going to have much luck using a saw with teeth that deliberately runs in the dirt.

But then last week I was down in Western Arkansas visiting friends and amazed all over again at how soft their dirt is and how dense the forest is there. Their soil is completely different. It's soft, and will stain clothes; ours won't. With the way things grow there, those southern people really do have a whole different problem clearing land. Right next to any cleared area their woods are so thick.... such a tangle of growth of vines, trees, and shrubs there that it would be an effort for a body to force itself more than a few feet in any direction. Even a bulldozer would bog. I can't imagine trying to walk through those woods.

It's a whole different problem from what we have here, and the turbosaw looks like a great solution.
rScotty

Typically in my part of the South we have thick underbrush at the edges of tree lines. Once you get through a few yards of the thick stuff and into the established forest the underbrush disappears. The underbrush does not grow well under thick tree cover.

 

[ovrszd]

Typically in my part of the South we have thick underbrush at the edges of tree lines. Once you get through a few yards of the thick stuff and into the established forest the underbrush disappears. The underbrush does not grow well under thick tree cover.

Similarly here. Especially in old growth timber that's not been logged.

 

[5030]

Best way to remove unwanted trees that I know of is a D6. with a rear ripper.

 

[Ed27]

Update.

I'm sill plugging away with the tractor and saw. My wife and I both still work full time, so we only get to haul the tractor to the new place on the weekends. We're up to 364 Bradford pear trees cut down (not to mention a bunch of other trees too)! The new Kubota M7060 has 46 hours on it. Kubota says to do the first oil and filter change at 50 hours, so I did it tonight. The size of the two drain plugs in the oil pan are 7/8". Whoever first screwed them in at the factory got really serious about it. Each of the drain plugs has a washer on it. Make sure you keep track of them and put them back on with the drain plug. The washer on one drain plug stayed with the plug. The washer on the other drain plug stayed very firmly attached to the bottom of the oil pan. I tried to push the washer off the bottom of the oil pan with a wooden stick. It would not budge but I did not try very hard. No need to damage the washer or gouge the oil pan. The original oil filter that came on the tractor is grey because it goes on the engine block at the factory before the engine gets a shot of grey paint. The oil filter comes off easy with an oil filter wrench, but be careful when you put the wrench on the filter because the plastic drain plug on the water separator is right in front of the filter. I put the Kubota oil filter on it. It is Kubota part number HH1C0-32430. Even though I live in TN, I bought the filter online from Neil Messick's place in PA. I have watched every one of his Kubota YouTube videos, so it gave me joy to send a few bucks his way. Neil could give a class on how to make good informative videos. The tractor takes 12.7 quarts of oil (one 2.5 gallon jug and 2/3 of a 1 gallon jug). I put Shell Rotella T5 SAE15W-40 diesel oil in it. It is a synthetic blend oil that exceeds the API CJ-4 requirement of Kubota for the tractor. Ready for more tree cutting!