Honey Locust Tree

[MoKelly]

We have several of these bad boys on the property. Slowly they are dying. They are roughly 25-30 feet tall. These trees are dangerous to people and rubber tires. Apparently, people know to avoid them but tires aren’t so smart.

Recently, a dead one fell over and had to be cleaned up. It takes forever as you can really hurt yourself if you aren’t very slow and careful. Lots of cutting and moving to a burn pile.

Does anyone have any magic solution for taking down dead locust trees? One idea I had was to burn them standing. I imagine the tree going up in flames and all that will be left is a pile of ash. I have room such that the fire itself won’t be an issue but I can imaging the tree dropping branches and falling before fully burned.

Another idea was seeing telehandlers on TBN and thinking I could drive up, attach, pull the thing out by it’s roots and carry into the woods.

Again, I’m afraid reality may be very different.

Any thoughts?

I’m afraid there may be no magic bullet and I’m going to need to dispose of them the old fashion way.

MoKelly

 

[MossRoad]

Other than cutting them down before they die, there's not much you can do to prevent branches and thorns from falling off it as it falls.

 

[ovrszd]

Honey Locust root very well. It will take a mammoth Telehandler to pull them out of the ground.

 

[MoKelly]

So far no magic solution.

My wife likes the way they look in summer - so, cutting down while alive is not likely.

She signs off on all trees to be cut down - all 30 acres. Good thing she wasn’t around when the 50 acres of farmland was developed along the river!

She seems to believe wide open pastures came that way - despite all the surrounding woods!

At least along with locust trees God invented tire plugs!

MoKelly

 

[MossRoad]

We have about 10,000 trees on a 10 acre plot. About half are locust. Fortunately, they are black locust, and do not have thorns on the large trunks. Only the saplings under about 2-3" diameter have thorns on the trunk and they aren't but about 1/2-3/4" long. The smaller branches higher up on the large trees have those thorns as well, but again, once they hit about 2" in diameter, no thorns.

We have only a couple honey locust that I can think of. They are the stuff of horror movies.

 

[MoKelly]

We have only a couple honey locust that I can think of. They are the stuff of horror movies.

They certainly are! I’ve heard neighbors refer to them as Jesus Trees - the thought being the Crown Of Thorns was made from the branches.

I guess they have a purpose in nature - they are still here after all these years.

MoKelly

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Maybe a steel tracked dozer to push them down and push them into a pile for burning?

 

[Liquidsilver]

Yeah, I don't have many... but I don't wait for them to die. I break them down and burn 'em. No need for those thorns and I have inner tubes!

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

And maybe the dozer "gets away" from you and you accidentally knock down a few more live ones?

 

[MoKelly]

And maybe the dozer "gets away" from you and you accidentally knock down a few more live ones?

I like your thinking!!! I didn’t think of a dozer. Interesting. Thanks!

MoKelly