Newbie and 45 acres

[tradosaurus]

To be clearer, I won't be performing any thinning of trees as I would have a timber company harvest it themselves. I would most likely be planting new pine trees, landscaping around house, and general odds and ends besides mowing.

 

[ericm979]

The areas to the northwest and south appear to have been planted all at the same time, and pretty close together. How high are the trees there? They look small. You may want to thin them now to allow the remaining trees to grow to marketable size faster. Judging from the neighboring properties water may be a limiter for growth. Thinning can help that. When I worked for the forest service in the high pine forests in Arizona we did a lot of thinning. Sometimes we'd get into thickets of 2" trees that were 30 years old and 6' high, stunted growth from lack of water.

It might be useful to get a timber plan or advise, and talk to some timber companies, before you buy your equipment. You may find for example that local logging companies don't do pre-harvest thinning or that it's an expense that you can't afford since the payoff is years in the future. In which case you may want to do it yourself, and guide your equipment purchases accordingly.

 

[boggen]

it is the clean up, after the timber company comes in, removes trees, and deals with stumps/root balls. they will come in fast and quick and be gone, and most likely you will not be satisfied with the end results of what they left.

a SCUT to small.

a CUT gives you enough power / weight abilty to deal with the clean up.

if you were going to mess with cutting down trees and root balls, i would be pushing for a higher HP tractor (high end CUT, and getting into Utility class or larger tractor)

google
land clearing site:tractorbynet.com
then click up on images.

above should give you some descent amount of links to read through along with images. to get an idea of what you will be facing with a timber company.

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beyond gravel driveway, also dealing with dirt trails through property, and needing to deal with ground engagement attachments, from box blade, rear blade, FEL (front end loader), to other. and with 45 acres, taking in account estimated length of driveway and trails. a SCUT tractor to small. you be spending more hours on tractor than there is daylight. a CUT will get it done within a reasonable amount of time.