Chipper for 103 PTO HP Tractor (JD 6430 premium) - options, prices, etc.

[candersen10]

It's more of an ongoing process of dealing with wood. We have 180 acres, many of which are full of trees, and also heat our house with wood. The idea was to perhaps switch to a chipper type wood furnace, and use a big chipper to process all of the wood we have.

Is the wood species usable for firewood or something? Any amount of it you can get others to haul away helps. How many acres are you clearing? One cord of green hardwood wood can weigh 2 tons. Does the ground have to be bare, or could you take the logs out then bush hog down the branches and let it rot in place or till them in with a hvy duty tiller? That is actually the fastest way it will disappear other than burning, chipping or burying.

 

[dave1949]

Well, unless you need a gob of chips to do that, I would size the chipper to your 103 hp tractor, not too big and not too small that your horsepower tears it up. A 10 or 12 inch chipper can make a respectable pile of chips pretty quickly. Like someone else said, you will have to clean up the butt end so you aren't trying to chip dirt and maybe rocks that are held in the roots.

Even at that, if you calculate your investment against what is worth to you in heat, I don't think it will be very favorable unless you are considering trying to build a business around chip-fed heaters/boilers. We have a couple schools in the area that have converted from oil-fired boilers to chips. They save a lot of money, but they burned an awful lot of oil too.

 

[groundcover]

I have a Brush Bandit 250 XP , 140 horse Cat, 12" disk chipper, she's a beauty and will make a boat load of chips. Bandit also makes PTO chippers,worth a look.

 

[MarkV]

Have you considered selling the timber to a logger? Around here many of them are now running chippers and cleaning up most of the slash through the chipper. No real money in the chips for the landowner but you end up with a much nicer finish site. If you have a 180 acres I would be seeing how I could make money from the trees.

MarkV