New Trails - Brush Hogged, Now How to Remove Small Stumps?

[Thunder chicken]

how about a chainsaw and an old or sacrificial chain? Or a brush saw? Rent one and don’t worry about trashing the blade. A Pulaski is also an effective tool for chopping roots and small stumps. But it needs an operator who is 16-20 years old.

 

[k0ua]

In my opinion the best way to get rid of 2 or 3 inch stumps is to not make them in the first place. Don't clear trail with a bush hog. Clear trail with your bucket and grapple. Wait until a good rain, 2 days after the rain run your bucket along and push over these small "trees". Work and pull them with your grapple and stack to get rid of them. The brush piles makes for good game habitat. Don't have to deal with stumps if you don't have any. Your tractor will easily push over small trees after a rain. If the little brush didn't get grubbed out with the bucket or grapple, then think about brush hogging after a while. The reason for waiting a couple of days after a good rain is for the top of the ground to firm up so your tires don't dig as much, but down where the roots live it is still soft. Reserve brush hogging for the grass and weeds and small brush that attempts to grow back into the trail. At least that is the way I do it here in Missouri.

 

[airbiscuit]

Mow it
Mow it again
Mow it again

(lather, rinse, repeat)

First Mowing

After subsequent mowings

 

[npartist]

For ones too big to rip up with a back blade/bucket I use a dedicated stump bucket. I made my own (build video here) but you can buy similar ones for less than $500 new. I made a 6-10ft wide 1000ft long nature trail in the woods and started with brush cutter and then cut any small sapling (<2in) stumps flush to the ground by hand with loppers (didn't have many to do) then I had 2 or 3 bigger stumps I had to use the stump bucket on. Here's a video of the stump bucket on a different trail with a 12in tree stump.

 

[arto98607]

Not as fancy as a bobcat, but one of these low cost sub soiler/middle buster combos (and a 4x4 tractor) would be helpful to cut roots of some your larger stumps.
The more traction the better.

OP may even be able to get enough traction with his Ford 641 if using the 3-point arms for lifting up roots with this?






It's also a pretty good potato plow if you ever need one!

 

[John_Mc]

Someone on here posted this "treegetter" years ago. (I'd love to give credit, but can't remember who it was.) They said it worked great for pulling up saplings. He just backed up to them until they were wedged into the notches, then either lifted with his three Point hitch, or just kept on backing up. I believe he used it without mowing the saplings at all. If you do mow, you may want to mow high, in order to leave plenty of room to get the stump into the notches.

I think if I ever build one, I'll add some diagonal braces coming up from where the lower 3 pt arms attach and up to the top of the center post. Without those braces, I'd be afraid of bending the horizontal bar over the course of a lot of tree pulling

 

[arto98607]

That looks like it would work.

I agree about the diagonal braces!

The amount of work required in cutting the steel pieces and welding it together means it probably has to be a home handyman project since it would cost quite a bit to have a local shop make one.

 

[John_Mc]

another tread with some treegetter info:
Cleaning the fence row is fun now

This one is the same basic concept as the one I posted earlier, but is FEL mounted. If your FEL is strong enough, that might be easier to use, but on most tractors, the 3 Pt hitch has higher lift capacity.

 

[ArlyA]

just follow