Need ideas to get rid of a couple of maple stumps

sixdogs · Jul 18, 2017

Thanks to the ideas in this thread, I'm on a roll and did another stump. It was a maple stump more than a foot across. It's been dead for a year so I sawed flush with the ground, drilled a bunch of holes in it and soaked in charcoal lighter fluid. I tied back a nearby tree and put up a piece of sheet metal for a buffer. Then I built a wood fire on top.

After it dried down I used the leaf blower to let the glowing embers burn more of the roots. A couple roots didn't burn right so I got my small JD790 TLB and broke them out without digging up much ground. after the fire was out I soaked things with water and you can't even tell there was a stump there. It won't grow grass in the center for a few years but it will gradually creep in. I tossed some topsoil on today and some grass seed and straw goes on tomorrow.

For me, this is the only way to get rid of a stump. No huge hole that takes five years to settle out and no pile of wood chips that won't grow grass for a long time. This took a half day, was relatively painless and things are back to normal tomorrow. Just an FYI.

Here are the pics to show it happened.

Green Acres Homestead · Dec 6, 2017

Grubbing a couple of acres with my backhoe attachment bh92. Came across a cluster of 4 green stumps 2 feet big each. After about 2 hours of digging it's not going to be easy. Guess I will have to cut the stumps apart so they will break off under the force of the backhoe.

Green Acres Homestead · Dec 6, 2017

So I removed the stumps with my backhoe attachment bh92. So now what? We they burn with some dirt not them?I am going to try to burn them but there is some ground on them. I beat them up with the backhoe and pick them up and dropped them. Some of the biger stumps still have some soil on them. I wonder will they burn like that? Anybody have any experience with this.

4570Man · Dec 7, 2017

I've had no luck getting stumps to burn at least all at once. The best process I found is to burn dig dirt off with backhoe, burn, dig dirt off, repeat about 10 times.

sixdogs · Dec 7, 2017

Digging stumps out, for me has been a bad experience. It's brutal to the ground, leaves a mess of stumps and ground to deal with and then you have to get rid of them. Unless you're going to farm the ground, I just cut them flush with the ground, immediately paint the edges of the stump with straight generic roundup to kill them and then scuff a little dirt on top. The roundup is key here or you'll have a billion suckers and future trees to deal with. This way worked effectively for me on 8 acres I did years ago.

After a couple or few years, a backhoe will break the edges off if you really have to. I've been doing this for decades and only use the drill method from this thread for something on the lawn. Even then, I only burn down below grade and then cover with dirt.

EddieWalker · Dec 7, 2017

gaproperty said:
So I removed the stumps with my backhoe attachment bh92. So now what? We they burn with some dirt not them?I am going to try to burn them but there is some ground on them. I beat them up with the backhoe and pick them up and dropped them. Some of the biger stumps still have some soil on them. I wonder will they burn like that? Anybody have any experience with this.

I burn stumps all the time. When taking out the tree, I take it all out at once, and then cut off the stump if I want to keep the log for firewood, or it's just too heavy to pick up or drag with my backhoe. I try to pile the stumps up, but with so many trees, the stumps get mixed into the pile all over the place. Once burning, I'll push them around into the hottest areas of the coals and keep them going as long as possible. After each burn, there are fewer stumps left, but just guessing, it takes three really good burns to get rid of a stump. I just use what didn't burn as the pile to start the next burn.

sixdogs · Dec 7, 2017

Something the above EW post got me thinking about was a huge pile of stumps that I once burned. It wasn''t all clean stumps but mud, etc. Anyway, as the pile settled down, I put the leaf blower on it and got a surprisingly rapid remainder of the burn. It didn't burn 100% but as, EW suggests, just added to the next burn.

TractorGuy · Dec 7, 2017

I don't feel so bad now. I'm a year and a half into reclaiming some land from the forest and I am about to put the finishing touches on two acres out of five. I had the 5 acres clear cut 2 years ago. This year I cut the natural growth of grass all season with my finish mower on the front acre so there is life after digging. I dig a few inches deep all around the stump and place the top soil in a separate pile then when I hit clay I put it in a separate pile. After the stump is out I put the clay back in and pack it good then move the top soil back on top. You always end up with some clay mixed in but the grass doens't seem to mind.