Clearing 4 acres in North Carolina

[viziers]

So I have 10 acres of land and I will be clearing 4 of the 10 Acres. So far I have acquired a ford 4000 tractor and will also quire a subsoiler to cut some of the roots on the stumps before pulling them with the draw bar of the tractor. I will also be looking to purchase a BB and landscape rake for final grading of the driveway.

The trees are mostly 8" in diameter and smaller with only a few per acre that are 18" and up Pine and Oak. So far I have been cutting the trees down and leaving roughly 3'+ of the stump to ease in pulling and have been de-limbing the trees and cutting them into logs and have made a few trips to the saw mill in my old 95 Dodge Dakota to sell the pine logs as pulp wood and will sell the larger logs as saw logs but will need to rent a trailer for that as they are 12'+ in length. At some point i'll rent an Excavator to remove some rocks and some of the larger stumps and larger trees.

From what I am doing does this sound like a good approach to clearing it? Did I miss anything that may need to be looked at?


Oh and the land is being cleared so we can build a house on it in a few years...


vizi

 

[s219]

If you really mean 3" of stump, that is not real useful (may as well be 0"). Really, you need several feet of stump left to push over with hydraulics. When pulling with a tractor, even that probably won't be enough, as you are fully dependent on traction to get the job done. I leave about 3' of stump when pulling sapling (3" max diameter) stumps out with a brush grubber, and even that can be traction limited.

I have dealt with larger stumps using a backhoe, and know I need at least 4-5' of stump for leverage.

For 6" and smaller pines, I push the trees over with the front loader hydraulics after busting surface roots with an axe. There is still a taproot to deal with on my Loblolly pines, but generally the loader can do it pretty easily.

4 acres is a lot to clear, and I'd suggest renting a track hoe and use that to do the primary clearing work. With a skilled operator, a track hoe can easily and safely push over trees and pop the stumps out handily (use the entire tree as the lever, and then saw off the stump once it's out of the ground). My entire property is 4 acres, and we cleared perhaps 1 acre of that for the home (mostly Loblolly pines, but some oaks, beeches, and poplars too). A track hoe was the main tool, and I wouldn't want to mess around with anything less capable than that, even for 1 acre of clearing, unless you had a lot of time on your hands.

Good luck!

 

[viziers]

If you really mean 3" of stump, that is not real useful (may as well be 0"). Really, you need several feet of stump left to push over with hydraulics. When pulling with a tractor, even that probably won't be enough, as you are fully dependent on traction to get the job done. I leave about 3' of stump when pulling sapling (3" max diameter) stumps out with a brush grubber, and even that can be traction limited.

I have dealt with larger stumps using a backhoe, and know I need at least 4-5' of stump for leverage.

For 6" and smaller pines, I push the trees over with the front loader hydraulics after busting surface roots with an axe. There is still a taproot to deal with on my Loblolly pines, but generally the loader can do it pretty easily.

4 acres is a lot to clear, and I'd suggest renting a track hoe and use that to do the primary clearing work. With a skilled operator, a track hoe can easily and safely push over trees and pop the stumps out handily (use the entire tree as the lever, and then saw off the stump once it's out of the ground). My entire property is 4 acres, and we cleared perhaps 1 acre of that for the home (mostly Loblolly pines, but some oaks, beeches, and poplars too). A track hoe was the main tool, and I wouldn't want to mess around with anything less capable than that, even for 1 acre of clearing, unless you had a lot of time on your hands.

Good luck!

Corrected, I meant 3 feet + of stump... I forgot to mention I also have the Brush Grubber and use a 30'x4" strap on it (I know a there is a lot of debate over straps)....


vizi

 

[Sprinklerman]

Rent a backhoe or trackhoe for a week at a time , use the tractor for clean up and restoration. I have a JD 310 b backhoe I cleared a 1 acre wooded lot in 3 days, Had all the logs stacked and we chipped the brush .

 

[Deere Dude]

Not as cool as a track-hoe but I put a 100 ft of 3/8" cable about 12-15' up a tree and come-a-long it to another tree a ways off. Crank the starch out of it to get the tree to bend and then dig on the back side. Push with the FEL will possibly get it to tip over then. The weight of the tree has tremendous weight to help leverage the root-ball out. Possible dig around the tree first to loosen things up.

 

[bigdeano]

I don't know if you have any cable or pulleys, but doubling your tractor pull with a pulley on the stump can make a big difference.

 

[oosik]

The most important thing - - if the process works for you and does not put the 'ol bod in eminent danger - then its just great. Another option to Deere Dude's "tree crank" is to get an old double-fluke ship anchor and sink it into the ground as an anchor point - some distance from any tree you might want to pull down. There isn't always a suitable tree the necessary distance from the one you want to pull down. You will find that adding a front end loader - if you don't already have one - will be of great assistance.

 

[viziers]

Well I just realized by reading from another thread on here I may need a permit of some sort as the driveway will run right over a dried up creek bed (only trickles when it rains) by using a colvert(sp?) or making a bridge but it is the only way to get to the other side as it runs across the whole property. But also read further in the thread that if it is obstructing passage to the house plot I should be ok?


vizi

 

[s219]

You'd really need to talk to your town/county building/environmental/engineering department to get the answer. Everyone has different policies.

Around here, intermittent streams are classified as wetlands and cause problems. But ephemeral streams (only flow after rain) are not an issue. I had to cross an ephemeral stream with my driveway, and it was no problem at all. Put down a culvert pipe (must be sized to handle 10-year rain event here) and then filled over, with rip-rap rock on the edges.

Oddly, the county classified this stream as ephemeral, but I have never seen it dry -- always some trickle. After a heavy rain, it really boils for a couple hours. I can't really figure where the permanent water trickle comes from, other than it just starts in a low spot on the property and then runs all the way to the nearby creek. At some points, the ephemeral stream "ditch" is almost 8 feet deep. It appears to be an ancient terrain feature that has been around a long time. I didn't even know about it when we first looked at this property, and practical fell in the ditch one time when surveying the potential driveway route. The stream and its ditch pretty much divides my rectangular property into two triangles.

 

[viziers]

You'd really need to talk to your town/county building/environmental/engineering department to get the answer. Everyone has different policies.

Around here, intermittent streams are classified as wetlands and cause problems. But ephemeral streams (only flow after rain) are not an issue. I had to cross an ephemeral stream with my driveway, and it was no problem at all. Put down a culvert pipe (must be sized to handle 10-year rain event here) and then filled over, with rip-rap rock on the edges.




Oddly, the county classified this stream as ephemeral, but I have never seen it dry -- always some trickle. After a heavy rain, it really boils for a couple hours. I can't really figure where the permanent water trickle comes from, other than it just starts in a low spot on the property and then runs all the way to the nearby creek. At some points, the ephemeral stream "ditch" is almost 8 feet deep. It appears to be an ancient terrain feature that has been around a long time. I didn't even know about it when we first looked at this property, and practical fell in the ditch one time when surveying the potential driveway route. The stream and its ditch pretty much divides my rectangular property into two triangles.

Ours does the same, from one end to the other and no way around it other than over it......

Now looking at the GIS map for our county it only shows 1 blue dotted water way and classifies it as "Intermittent" and that is actually at the back of our property and not where the driveway goes. So in "theory" I should be ok but will still check it out to be safe!


vizi