Traction Looking for advice on stump removal

[Piston]

Just reread your initial post. I see your having the trees harvested, but it's only 1.5 acres? Or you will only de-stump 1.5 acres but have a lot more harvested?


The reason I'm asking, is because 1.5 acres of 12" trees isn't typically worth the cost of fuel it takes to get them to the ground, for many loggers anyways. So, if your paying to have it cleared, perhaps you could pay someone with a machine to push the trees over, uprooting the stumps. Or, if that's not an option, tell the loggers to leave the stumps 3-4' high.

If your having a large area logged, try to work the price of de stumping that section into the price.

 

[2TonCommon]

Piston: The trees are being logged out by a logging company. The stumps are being cleared in order to plant grass, garden, etc.

 

[2TonCommon]

Piston: The trees were planted 30 years ago by the previous owner who didn't know his you-know-what from a hole in the ground. They were packed in way too tight, and most of them are pecker-poles or a little larger, but nothing over ~ 12" diameter. They're being logged in order to provide a water and mountain view and to remove them as a fire hazard since most of them are 1/2 dead anyhow. Essentially the money my bro gets from the logging company will be chump change, but he'll get the view so to him it's a worthy endeavor.

 

[boomer1025]

A dozer would be the quickest way

 

[hslogger]

I will chime in here being a PNW resident. One and a half acre plot right? Okay so he is going to have it clearcut? Well, is it going to be hand fell or mechanically fell? yarded with a cat or skidder or shovel logged? The easiest way would be One, shovel log it and push them over rootball and all. Buck the rootballs off and pile them with your slash. Second would be to high stump them all and then come back and push the stumps over. I think you would be a lot better off doing it that way than dinking around with your tractor.

 

[Industrial Toys]

They appear to have never had a pre-commercial thinning.

I had maybe fifteen acres of pine harvested a couple of years back. Looks like heck! That was
the first pre-commercial thinning since planting in the early 70s.

There is no good way to get rid of the stumps. I had a hoe in here, and asked him to take a few
out. At a hundred bucks an hour, that was taking way too long. Plus, he left big holes and I still
had to carry the stumps to a burn pile and then TRY and get them burned with other brush!

You can't bring in a dozer, if you have other trees still on site. A forestry mulcher may be the
answer, but I don't know, and wonder if you need a really big one and not just a skid steer unit. Sometimes bigger, really is better. You have to pay for the man anywayand that's a big part of the bill. Might as well get the most bang for your buck.

Sorry for the format, still having computer issues!

 

[Piston]

A friend of mine had 4 acres clear cut in NH. He made a deal with the loggers, through his forester, that instead of paying for the logs, he wanted it it all cleared and graded ready for topsoil and seeding. They took all the trees, and he got a nice clear area that is now grass, and opened up his views a lot more. That's another option depending on the value of the timber of course.


If you can't have a machine knock the tree over and uproot the stump at the same time, then another option is a stumpgrinder. You could rent (or buy and then sell) a good sized stump grinder, and grind each stump 6" or so below the surface. I grind all my customers stumps 12" below the surface as long as there aren't rocks embedded in the stump itself.

An acre and a half would be a LOT of grinding, but if you could swing the cost of buying a dedicated stump grinder and sell it when your done, it wouldn't be too much money. Depending on the soil, and how large the stumps/roots are, I can grind a stump quicker with my 40hp PTO than I can dig it out with my JD 410 backhoe.


The advantage of grinding, is you don't have a whole lot of giant holes to fill in like you do when digging, you don't have to burn or dispose of the stumps, the chips created from the stumps decay as organic matter back into the soil, and although you will still have a lot of grading to do, it can easily be done with the tractor you have now since your dealing with all loose material.

If you ground all the stumps (LOTS of grinding no doubt) and then graded with a box blade, and went over the area with a power rake a few times, you'd have a really nice start on a seedbed. It wouldn't be a golf course green, but it would be a whole lot cheaper.

 

[2TonCommon]

A dozer would be the quickest way

Boomer: Thanks! I think you've got the right answer.... and probably the most efficient. I'll show my brother this thread and let him see the good advice here.

 

[deezler]

good advice in here. A few years ago when my tractor and land were fresher, I used my 30 HP CUT front loader to blast out a couple dozen stumps. It worked, but was very slow going, and very hard on the loader. Now its a bit crinkled up, the bucket falls down quicker, etc. I would not do this again. Instead, just the past weekend I rented an 8000 lb mini-excavator and didn't just dig out stumps, I pushed over entire trees, and picked them right up out of the ground, stump and all. The excavator just laughed at roots. Definitely the way to go. A dozer would also probably work great, but then you are renting an even much heavier machine, and possibly more expensive.

 

[oldpilgrim]

I forgot to mention in my earlier posting:

When I built my house, I had to clear about an acre and a half of mostly tall white pine, from 12-24 inches in diameter. I had a guy cut all the trees and stack them where I had someone come and take them to the mill for me. I used the lumber to build my barn.

I then hired a large excavator to come in and dig the stumps out of the ground. It was amazing how easily that machine just plucked them up. Grab it with the thumb and pop! out of the ground. It took no time at all to pluck them all up. The size of the machine made it so quick and easy.

Quicker means less money.

The stumps were pushed away from anything important, at the edge of the woods, into 3 piles with a rather small dozer. Next to each pile the excavator dug a large hole and the stumps were buried there and packed into the ground. You'd be surprised how much the stumps compacted with that huge excavator squashing those stumps into those holes.

The dozer spread the dirt left over at each hole site over the area where the stumps were removed.

If I remember right, this was done in less than 2 days. I don't remember the cost from back then but it was considerably less than I expected.

Twenty years later the stump burial sites show no signs of 'sinkage'.

I remember a couple of eventful things from that project. One was the area was full of small sassafras trees which came out with the pines. The roots are very aromatic....smell like root beer. The ex driver was complaining the smell was nice at first but soon became overwhelming and nearly nauseating, it was so strong. You could smell it for hundreds of yards if the wind was right.

The other thing was getting stung over 30 times by ground wasps that the ex upset. The ex operator got hit a few times too.

To the OP, do it right....get someone with the right equipment to get it done quick.