Clearing 1/2 Acre...You Want How Much???

[Kyle241]

Thanks everyone for your input. I know that the stumps are really my biggest problem in that there are three options: burn them, bury them or haul them to the township dump. The latter has gotten very expensive around here so it's not really feasible. I have 82 acres so I can bury them, just need to locate a good spot as digging anywhere close to the house for that many stumps would require an excavator - we have a lot of rocks. I have another area but it's about 25 acres back so that's a lot of hauling them through the woods. Burning them is still allowed here, I'm just not a fan of brush fires anymore as already indicated.

Carl, you have some good points. I'll ask around and try to find some guys who do this sort of work.

Right now, I'm going to take a look at the Kubota excavator rental as I know it has a blade, just not sure whether it has a thumb. I'm also going to go over the area more closely to see what makes the most sense and measure between the trees I want to keep because like Carl states and I had thought of, those trees will likely get damaged when a dozer compacts the earth over their root system. I have another week prior to making a decision as this weekend is painting the garage that I built last year!

 

[20 20]

haul them to the township dump


They won't allow that around here anymore, for some reason stumps seem to be some sort of horrible monster in this area. I have buried them and then had to dig in the area......what a PITA. Seems they don't rot in our clay soil, they can be just as hard as a rock years later. Now I just stack them for a awhile and burn when dry.

 

[Mousefield]

Kyle241 "those trees will likely get damaged when a dozer compacts the earth over their root system"


One of the positives with an excavator over a bulldozer is they can reach in between some of the larger trees and push over the smaller ones. Then they reach in and pull the smaller tree out by its roots thus a lot of the ground will not be compacted as they are not driving over it.

 

[crazyal]

My Case 450 will push 6" to 8" trees over all day long. Put the blade up and knock them down. Back up and put the blade low and you push the stump right out of the ground. A half acre would take me a half day at most and you could make a few nice piles. With just a little bit of skill you can get the pile so the stumps are out in the open by next spring most of the dirt will be washed off. Rent a large chipper and chip the stumps along with the trees.

Small dozers don't compact. The damage they can do to roots are if you try moving dirt next to a tree and catch the root or if a grouser bar on a pad hits a root on the surface. Because of the length and width of the tracks they have a lot of ground contact. In the winter I drive mine around because it will float on top of the snow. It'll sink in maybe 6" in 2' to 3' deep snow. I often use mine in my woods with no problems at all.

 

[BigBoyinMS]

The price differences between regions is amazing. I had quotes on having just over an acre of 8"-12" pines cleared and stacked for burning. Everyone came in close to the same price... $3000-$3500. Some quoted using a dozer and some quoted using an excavator. The guy I chose used a full sized excavator with a bucket thumb. He would snap off the tree about halfway then go down and take it out from the ground. Very little dirt went with the tree. He then smoothed it all with a dozer. He did a good job but I won't use him again. I thought he had dug up some sandstone but realized later that he had brought in a truckload of rubble from digging a foundation pad for a previous job he did. He just needed a place to get rid of it.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Thanks everyone for your input. I know that the stumps are really my biggest problem in that there are three options: burn them, bury them or haul them to the township dump.

You missed one option, stump grinding. I would probably go with dozing them out and burning the stumps during the winter, but the poster who suggested grinding made some good points, too. Just cutting (or shearing) the trees as close to the ground as possible, then grinding the stumps below the surface would minimize damage to the trees you leave standing.
I've seen videos of stump grinding, but haven't ever done it myself, so I don't know how time-consuming or expensive it is, though.

BOB

 

[kebo]

I would hire a forestry mulcher to come in an do most of the work, then do the clean up with the tractor and chainsaw. You would be amazed at what those machines can do.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

You also left out letting them rot. If you're just going to bush-hog the land to maintain it you could cut them off low enough to let the bush-hog pass over them and forget about them. Just make sure you spray them so they don't resprout on you.

I would worry most about killing the trees that you want to keep. It is easy to kill a tree if you damage the roots, and it is easy to damage the roots when you're operating heavy equipment. A large, dead, standing tree is a major liability and can be an expensive problem to fix. Leaving the stumps in the ground is much healthier for the surrounding trees.

I agree that deciding what you're going to do with the stumps is the biggest issue. Once you decide that your course of action should be apparent.

 

[Taylortractornut]

How much of it are you going to garden? I have a freind that wanted about a halft acre cleared off a 2 years ago. I told him Id do it for him for what it cost to run my excavator and skid steer. He wanted to garden 1/4 acre of it and sow grass and start an orchard on it. THere was a mix of 2 inches to 12 inch oak pine ad blackjack oak on it. I told him I could do what Ive done in the past and mow the under brush and a make it where I could make some time with the hoe. I could do the whole job in about 6 hours for the big stuff and Remove it from the property. He worked with a man that had a mulcher and he had him come in and sweet talk him into that wasnt the way to go.


He came in with the mulcher and mulched thee trees under but left the stumps under ground. On the garden plot he couldnt plow or till the area to a suitable depth without hitting a stump. I came in had to dig up stumps without any leverage on them.

 

[Kyle241]

All good points. We may plan to garden part of the area we are clearing but the real reason is to just open it up some and hopefully reduce the bugs in summer. Currently our veg garden is too close the trees that when you go in there during mid-June through mid-August, you get attacked by deer flies and mosquitos. Hopefully clearing it up some and pushing the canopy back about 100ft or so will reduce this.