clearing palmetto palm field - loader or dozer?

[Highbeam]

Two acres in two days is overly optimistic in my opinion. You will never believe how big an acre is or how much debris you will pile up. Burning will take several days too.

I guarantee you can make a pretty good mess and even do quite a bit of work in two days but not two acres by yourself with a loader.

A little trick you should be aware of is that all the rental companies up here in the NW rent their equipment by the work day meaning that your two day rental adds up to 16 hours on the machine clock or else you pay extra.

 

[regor66]

Those palms sell for pretty good money in the nurseries here in the Palmetto State. (South Carolina) You might see if anyone there harvests them for shipment to other areas and get some help with that land clearing.

 

[rlee6]

Thank you for waking me up into reality. I did some simple arithmatic and realized my mistake. There is no way I can clear 2 acres in 2 days. I have never operated a loader before. The first day I will be pretty much wasting my time, learning the right moves. I changed my goal to 2 acres in 1 week. Rental goes up from $800 for 2 days to $1500 for 1 week.

After all, I think $2000 per acre is not a bad deal. If my parcel was just 2 acres, I would hire someone. But my parcel is larger than 2 acres and I cannot pay $4000 each time I clear 2 acres. That's almost the price of the land. Once I get used to loader/palmetto pulling, I will be able to save money down the road. My goal is to come out even this time.

If someone would take my palmetto palms, I would pay him gladly. But I am not aware of such deals in central Florida. If you know anyone, please let me know. I have many more palmettos to get rid of. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

8 hour limit/rental day is same here. A 3 yard loader with quick disconnect root rake (120 hp JD544, not 180 hp 644) will arrive tomorrow morning. In 1 week I will know if I made a mistake or not. I just cannot pay $2000/acre without trying it myself first.

One more thing. Starting from the burn pile and working my way out. Thank you very much for this tip.

 

[ScottAR]

Expanding on the technique... Build several piles along the "path"

Trying to centralize the piles will waste a lot of time and fuel driving back and forth. Smaller piles are easier to burn safely.

 

[rcrcomputing]

I sure like to see some pictures of these 3' tall tree's that are so much fuss!

 

[Soundguy]

I also hope the guy has fuel on the site. I know he's going to be burning a good supply of diesel in a 544. 5 gallon cans will get tireing very soon!

Still.. once he gets the hanf out of pressure and popping them out with the bucket.. it will be better.. then he can collect the debri with the rake all at once, and then go about root raking as clean up. Then back to the bucket to 'fix' and backdrag areas while the pile(s) burn And with palm.. that's a slow burn...

If it were me.. on my time... and I had a tractor.. i think I'd chain saw the big ones down and the mow the small-ish ones down, and then tinker with the box blade a little.. and just do some every week.. very cheaply.. ( if I had the time.. )

Soundguy

 

[OkeeDon]

Hey Sound, you've mentioned popping them with a bucket and then using the rake a couple of times -- you may be right, I know you've got a lot more experience than me, but when we rented our TLB for clearing, the curved tines on the rake when down and under the roots a lot easier than a bucket, and popped whatever we were after right out of the ground. We didn't do any palmettos, but I did pop some 7'-10' cabbage palms out where they were in the way of the house or barn. The bucket couldn't get as deep in the ground as the rake.

The pepper tree in the attached picture wasn't picked up off the gorund; it was popped out of the ground by the rake exactly as it sits in the rake in the picture! Palms, while tough, are easy in comparison.

 

[Highbeam]

The official clearing method for forests is to knock down and then pile. So you run the machine across the forest just knocking things down, popping them out, and leaving them there. Then is a seperate operation you go perpendicular to the first direction and push the debris into rows as far apart as is possible with the equipment you have.

In the olden days, the windrows would be burned one at a time from the windward side. But I have found that taking a chunk at a time out of the windrow and pushing it into the area between the rows for burning is better.

Whatever you do, enjoy the seat time. That propery will benefit greatly from being deforested.

 

[49tandc]

Stinking Palmettos... - I'm in the middle of doing this exact thing on my 40 acres. I have a 50HP 4WD tractor/FEL and just had a root rake made for the express purpose of removing palmettos. I'm just west of Gainesville and we haven't had much rain lately - very dry soil 8"-12" inches down. When I put the rake under the palmettos and in 4WD, move forward until I can't go any further and curl the rake up. MOSTLY successful doing it like this. If the palmetto clumps are big/thick, it lifted the rear of the tractor clear off the ground (to my surprise!!!). I'm working from the house outward, and as stated before, making numerous smaller burn piles. You've got to let the palmettos dry out for a week or 2 before burning them. When they are freshly dug, they are heavy, a week or so later, much lighter & burn well.

I dig up the palmettos/wild rosemary (greasewood) and then disk the sandy soil. After the disc, a landscape rake cleans up the mess pretty well. I can't set any sort of timeframe for the entire task, just doing what I can when I can.

Does any FLA guys have success using TSC 2-4-D on palmettos?

49T&C

 

[JoeR]

Most palmettos which are in clusters are more like 5' tall. Their roots grow together and when you try to pull one, you are pulling 5 to 15. They have these stringy roots that are about as thick as a finger, but it is like spider webs woven under the soil. Palmettos also burn green! You do not want them too close to your home since they love to burn. Many times, the pine trees will drop their needles onto a palmetto stand. The palmettos suspend the dead needles above the ground and this creates nasty fires! Plenty of fuel above and air underneath.

I tried to use my L4330 with a grapple rake and it took me three weekends to clear a 40x50 area. The palmettos would bring me to a dead stop. I realized my tractor was not big enough, and I was getting tired of my poor progress at clearing. Once the big machine finished, I was able to use my tractor to shake out the piles and get things ready for burning.

Joe