Mulching/clearing opinions

[LBrown59]

Yes they are both right that is a prime candidate for mulching but I would like to add something.When you clear small material like this with a dozer you end up with as much dirt in your piles as you do brush (see john-buds clearing pictures). As you know dirt will not burn and you will have these piles laying around for years until the brush decomposes or you have time to sift through them and get the dirt out. Just another reason why mulchers are better than dozers right boys.

I had to haul away 35 pickup loads of dirt after sifting through the piles so I know exactly what you're saying.
This was only a little Dodge D50 but still filling 35 of them with dirt is a lot of dirt from clearing only 6 tenths of an acre.
This worked out good for me as I used all 35 loads to back fill over the 110 feet of culvert i install in the road ditch across the front of my property.

 

[john_bud]

That is very true about the dirt piles. (Some new pics are up now in that thread)

But, if you are making food plots, then the piles are not entirely a bad thing. They cut a large field up into what feels like many smaller field with more edge that the critters like. The tangle also provides a place to hide and maybe even hibernate. Depending on which critter is in it. Low spots in the piles become tavel paths to bunch the critter's movement too.


Yeah, it's all a big lot of rationalization, but as I couldn't even find a mulcher it's all I have left after dozing!!

I do wish that I had bought the Rayco 87 with mulcher last spring. It would have required the sale of stock, but better that than what has been happening to it since!

 

[ScottOkla]

Still more info: a creek divides my place and I have two different situations depending on side. One side (20-30 acres) is like the last two pictures from before and the last one attached here. It just needs the 25 years growth cleared from among the mature trees. I can do this at a fair clip with my equipment but it would still take a few years working many weekends. It seems to be a perfect candidate for mulching.

The other side is like the first three pictures here. There are very few valuable trees, but the brush is much thicker and the seedlings bigger because there there was nothing blocking the sun from it the past 25 years. It is a variety of trees from 4 to 14 inches in diameter and 20' to 40' tall/skinny which I would prefer to have very little if any of it left. This seems to be a better candidate for dozing, but would still leave a huge mess and some work when done. The ground is soft in most areas for most of the year.

I will be having a pond built and some dirt work done with a dozer next August, so I am thinking about having him totally clear a few acres then, but having some of the underbrush in other areas mulched sooner.

Still undecided, but getting much closer.

 

[firemen122]

I would like to say that any good dozer operator using a rake will not push tons of dirt into a pile. I believe something like a 924 cat articulating loader with a rake on the front would make easy and fast work out of your stuff, as long as the groung is dry enough. I personally prefer to get stumps roots and all with a dozer,or articulating loader. I find if stumps have any size and are ground to surface level that in a few years you have holes everywhere in your fields from rotting stumps. If I tear it all out from the start I can disc and level and have a good fieldbed from the start. If stumps are small probably would not be a big deal. Also you will have your spraying cost on top of machine time to clean land. Just another perspective not necessarily right...