Post your Branson at work. Picture thread

[ptsg]

I've wondered if I should till in my orchard. What's the advantage?

I do it mostly as brush/weed control as I don't have the right implement for it. The cons of doing it with a tiller is that it will create an hard layer under the tilled ground that won't let the air flow and water getting to the ground where it needs to me.

Ideally you want to use a chisel plow, similar to the one in the picture below. This process will loosen the ground down to a foot or so deep that will let air flow, water and nutrients go through. Also, this won't damage the roots of the trees. It's an important process, specially when the trees are young.

I'm planning on getting a chisel plow some time in the future. From what I've heard from people that have been doing this their entire life, this process really makes a big difference on the growth and production of the orchards, plus it helps reducing the use of herbicides.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Aw heck Pedro, with your fab skills, I'm surprised you haven't made the chisel plow already.

That would take you what, an afternoon?

I'm kidding of course.

The guys up here that till their tree rows (not orchards) do it mostly for weed control. I would offer to help my neighbor, but I don't have an offset mower or tiller to get under the trees with. He uses another neighbors riding mower with a tiller on back and just pushes himself into the trees. It works, but he gets kind of beat up by the trees.

 

[ptsg]

Aw heck Pedro, with your fab skills, I'm surprised you haven't made the chisel plow already.

That would take you what, an afternoon?

I'm kidding of course.

The guys up here that till their tree rows (not orchards) do it mostly for weed control. I would offer to help my neighbor, but I don't have an offset mower or tiller to get under the trees with. He uses another neighbors riding mower with a tiller on back and just pushes himself into the trees. It works, but he gets kind of beat up by the trees.

If it wasn't for the crazy steel prices, I could consider going that route. I know I could pick an used 7 shank chisel plow for about €500, so that beats make my own by long margin.

I do, however, have plans to build on of those 3 pt tool bars that will allow me to attach 3 potato plows and maybe a potato digger for the next year harvest.

 

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Today the tractor was used as a large motorized wheelbarrow to move tools (not pictured: welder, added a couple minutes after this pic) across the land to where I needed to restructure the bracing for a gate's posts.

I was taking measurements to build a new gate but realized that the posts tilt outwards... 84" space between them at the bottom and 86½" at 7' high! A few years back when I ran the new fence I set it up with N-braces... well I'm pretty sure that the brace poles shank and of course, you can't adjust N braces.

So I decided to convert to H braces by swinging the diagonal brace up to horizontal. Used my rope come-along to straighten the posts, then a heavy duty ratchet strap as backup. The posts for the gate are metal, so I welded a couple small nubs for the H-brace's tension wires to hook on. (My welder just managed to do the job running off a 100' 14ga extension cord! I've measured the voltage at that garden shed plug, its base voltage there is 125V.)

Actually had to relax my initial tensioning of the new H-brace as I had pulled one of the posts too far. It's great now, the gate opening is square and my fence is nice at taut again; now I can build the gate.

 

[ericm979]

This is from a couple days ago but I'll be doing more today and for weeks to come: chipping up huge amount of branches that were broken out of our trees by an unusual snow storm a few weeks ago. I'm still working around the house and driveway. There's a lot of firs and they really took a beating.

That's a UTV and 4x8 dump trailer for the chips just to the left of the chipper.

 

[ning]

This is from a couple days ago but I'll be doing more today and for weeks to come: chipping up huge amount of branches that were broken out of our trees by an unusual snow storm a few weeks ago. I'm still working around the house and driveway. There's a lot of firs and they really took a beating.

View attachment 790753

That's a UTV and 4x8 dump trailer for the chips just to the left of the chipper.

Show us the trailer please?

 

[ericm979]

UTV trailer:

It was sold by Woodland Mills. They have a redesigned model now, which looks like it has some improvements. Like a top hinged tailgate. I have to remove the tailgate to dump. Mine's "galvanized" but it's the worst galvanizing I've ever seen. I need to derust the parts that are rusting and paint them.

It's super useful and carries about 4x what I can get in the bed of the UTV. I have not used the log trailer feature since I have a grapple for the tractor, but it would be good for carrying logs longer distances than I need to on my 20 acres.

 

[ning]

UTV trailer:

View attachment 791141


It was sold by Woodland Mills. They have a redesigned model now, which looks like it has some improvements. Like a top hinged tailgate. I have to remove the tailgate to dump. Mine's "galvanized" but it's the worst galvanizing I've ever seen. I need to derust the parts that are rusting and paint them.

It's super useful and carries about 4x what I can get in the bed of the UTV. I have not used the log trailer feature since I have a grapple for the tractor, but it would be good for carrying logs longer distances than I need to on my 20 acres.

I like it. Looks like the current offering is painted.

Would it be possible to attach panels (like plywood) to extend the height of the box for very light materials (like wood chips)?

 

[ning]

I like it. Looks like the current offering is painted.

View attachment 791301
Would it be possible to attach panels (like plywood) to extend the height of the box for very light materials (like wood chips)?

Apparently they sell extensions. I'd probably jury-rig something with plywood instead of the grid.

edit: just realized this is for the DR versa-trailer which looks like yours and less like the WM one

It would be tempting to set up a cylinder for dumping, hook it up to a remote and remove the crane for the most part

 

[ericm979]

I've been tempted to put an electric winch on mine, but the hand crank works ok and does not require adding a second battery to the UTV. Much of the time I'm shovelling chips out anyhow.

Mine is similar to the DR but had a few features I liked better and I thought it would be made better (DR has a pretty poor reputation).

Piled high with chips it's got about as much weight as I should be pulling with the UTV. I did once load it with wood down at the bottom of my property and drive up to where I process firewood and the UTV was really unhappy about pulling it up the slope.

 

[ning]

I've been tempted to put an electric winch on mine, but the hand crank works ok and does not require adding a second battery to the UTV. Much of the time I'm shovelling chips out anyhow.

Mine is similar to the DR but had a few features I liked better and I thought it would be made better (DR has a pretty poor reputation).

Piled high with chips it's got about as much weight as I should be pulling with the UTV. I did once load it with wood down at the bottom of my property and drive up to where I process firewood and the UTV was really unhappy about pulling it up the slope.

The DR's bed is apparently 20ga, WM just said (on chat, ymmv) that theirs is 16ga.
I'd be pulling with the tractor; ideally I could pull it to a pile, disconnect it, I guess chock the wheels as it has no brakes, load it with a bunch of tractor buckets, reconnect, pull it elsewhere, dump, repeat. Would definitely be faster than moving one bucket of chips across the land at a time.
Do I really need it? Probably not. But it would certainly be useful in a number of ways...

 

[YanmarFever]

Nothing beats those back yard deer hunters....
212 lbs

 

[ning]

Sunday my wife and I attacked a very thick patch of scotch broom on our land.

Just the other day I saw a post that mentioned an article showing using a section of pipe to make a chain cinch without a slip hook, and that article mentioned that the pipe helps grasp shrubs to pull.

So I went to my scrap pile and found this funky aluminum thing that just fits a 5/16 chain hook and figured I'd give it a try. I tried to cut the rectangular tube piece off but apparently I don't have any proper cutoff wheels and figured for a proof of concept it didn't matter.

The verdict: it's a game changer for pulling smaller brush!

Usually I wrap a chain 2-3 times around a trunk and then close off with the slip hook, and that works fine - as long as the trunk is an inch or greater. Smaller and the chain doesn't close well on the shrub and it just pulls right off.

With the pipe section, you put the chain with the hook through the pipe, chain goes around the trunk, then back through the pipe and then hook onto the pipe. Snug it manually then pull up with the FEL. Almost every shrub came right out; the occasional one broke off.

I was manually pulling any that would come easily enough as the soil conditions are perfect for it and manually pulling is still faster than the pipe, but there were still tons that needed the tractor - it was really dense.

As it turns out that rectangular block on the pipe section was very useful - both as a visual "oh there it is!" and also to make it easier to hold on to with gloves on. I won't be cutting it off in the future.

I got my wife in on the game too - her first time operating the tractor, finally; she mostly made the FEL go up/down to pull the shrubs (with a few accidental bucket curls interspersed lol) while I worked at pulling and setting the chain, and she also moved the tractor here and there as we completed what was reachable by the chain without moving.

We pulled three overflowing buckets worth of broom; I burned it all yesterday - it's ridiculous how flammable that stuff is even green!

 

[ericm979]

That looks like a good trick for pulling brush. Better than the spring loaded jaws thing I bought that slips off the brush half the time.

That looks like spanish broom. I think it's the worst of the three brooms for flammability but at least it grows slower than the other two. Also isn't that the power like ROW? And isn't the power company supposed to keep it clear? I guess they and their contractors are as bad on your side of the state as on mine.

 

[ning]

That looks like a good trick for pulling brush. Better than the spring loaded jaws thing I bought that slips off the brush half the time.

That looks like spanish broom. I think it's the worst of the three brooms for flammability but at least it grows slower than the other two. Also isn't that the power like ROW? And isn't the power company supposed to keep it clear? I guess they and their contractors are as bad on your side of the state as on mine.

We have a variety of brooms here; when I look for images for "scotch broom" it's a very good match and everyone (including the local conservation group) calls it that, but if you can tell the difference I won't argue I don't know about slow growth, it definitely invades all over the place here. I think one of my neighbors kind of likes the stuff in his meadow - I mowed a spot for him where a guy puts bees out and I offered to pull some of the worst of the broom in the meadow and he just shrugged his shoulders...

I also looked that the jaw thing and had doubts. Also saw their spiky chain thing and it looked decent but I just knew I'd use it on the the wrong thing and break the chain at some point. I'm definitely impressed with this thing. If you have a bit of pipe, give it a shot. I think like me you'll end up appreciating having a bit more to hold onto it as well though it doesn't need to be as big and clunky as my rectangular tubing. I've used a root jack / weed wrench and those definitely work well but the effort of carrying the thing around makes it mostly useful in dense areas IMO.

I've seen people recommend only pulling broom up to 1/2" thick because the soil disturbance increases spawn rates but I find that if you just cut it off, it'll be back the next year on the same root but be impossible to pull at that point even if you wanted to. I can see the point of cutting if you're in a remote area where you're trying to be one-and-done but I'm clearing my land and I regularly walk around and yank the little stuff by hand, so if there's ten that spawn the next couple years because of a pull, it's easy enough to deal with.

Yes that's the ROW. I'm surprised they don't seem to care about that pole, the one that's right by my gate they blast with a trimmer down to bare dirt pretty regularly. I literally cut a couple small trees down in the ROW to get there... they have gotten good at taking out trees that have at least a 0.3% chance of falling on the lines at least though I've called them out on some ridiculous choices like one tree literally growing away from the lines, enough is enough (I'm totally on board with them taking out real dangers mind you; they have the right to keep the ROW clear, but if there's a tree not in the ROW, I'm pretty sure they actually have to have your permission to cut it - I got a few thousand dollars' worth of tree work done for free when they took out a dying oak that theoretically kinda sorta maybe would've thrown a branch into the wires in some hypothetical never-happens-here cyclone so I can't really argue).

 

[ericm979]

When I took dendrology (tree taxonomy) in college in the '80s we were told they are all scotch broom. I thought the leafless variety was just growing under different conditions. My wife's gotten super into gardening and native plants and told me a few years ago that they're actually not only different species but different genuses. Maybe they were considered the same back then but have since been split off. Or we had it wrong then.

Here's a paper that describes them with some pics: https://ucanr.edu/sites/Rangelands/files/305143.pdf

also that paper's the first I heard about Portugese broom!

BTW the whole idea of species etc is an imperfect map that humans put on top of the world to try to understand it. The plants and animals are going to do what they want.

 

[Zork]

Subscribed, can't find picture to post

 

[ning]

A couple days ago I filled in an area to make it at least slightly passable by my tractor.
This whole area to the right of the fence is rocky and slopes down to the right; the fresh fill had a drop of about three feet from the left to right which coupled with the lumpy ground made it basically a no-go with the tractor.

It's definitely not pretty, nor is it particularly smooth. I have a turn-around loop down by my barn (in the direction the tractor is pointing) which I cut a bit more from the side, making it just slightly easier for my long bed crew cab truck to negotiate the loop without having to back up if I missed the turn-in by a foot; this is what we call "Nevada County Red Dirt" - lots of clay with a hint of sand in it. Probably almost perfect for cob, idk.

The conditions for doing this were perfect - the backhoe scraped it nicely off of the hill without clogging the bucket and it wasn't so wet as to be super heavy for a full bucket, and it still had enough moisture to pack down marvelously. Every bucket that I dumped I packed as best I could, then got another bucket, packed, etc... I was very pleasantly surprised that driving over it, the tractor was very stable. I definitely kept the bucket down low and had my seat belt on during the entire operation!

My two main concerns are that my maneuverability was super limited so I wasn't able to get the very middle of the lane packed, and it's not smooth and nicely sloped for water run-off so it'll likely pool. There's a bit of a slope to the right as it is; I figured I'd let it be a few weeks and then possibly dump more on it.

Still, my main need for this passage is only slight - I'll likely only have the tractor go through there spring through fall maybe ten times total when my wife needs more soil to top off garden beds or maybe if I finally get around to excavating a small pond next to the garden space up there; I have an access to our driveway at the bottom of this area and this passage provided an access to my barn road at the top, so it just provides more transit options.

 

[Zork]

A couple days ago I filled in an area to make it at least slightly passable by my tractor.
This whole area to the right of the fence is rocky and slopes down to the right; the fresh fill had a drop of about three feet from the left to right which coupled with the lumpy ground made it basically a no-go with the tractor.

It's definitely not pretty, nor is it particularly smooth. I have a turn-around loop down by my barn (in the direction the tractor is pointing) which I cut a bit more from the side, making it just slightly easier for my long bed crew cab truck to negotiate the loop without having to back up if I missed the turn-in by a foot; this is what we call "Nevada County Red Dirt" - lots of clay with a hint of sand in it. Probably almost perfect for cob, idk.
View attachment 853299
The conditions for doing this were perfect - the backhoe scraped it nicely off of the hill without clogging the bucket and it wasn't so wet as to be super heavy for a full bucket, and it still had enough moisture to pack down marvelously. Every bucket that I dumped I packed as best I could, then got another bucket, packed, etc... I was very pleasantly surprised that driving over it, the tractor was very stable. I definitely kept the bucket down low and had my seat belt on during the entire operation!

My two main concerns are that my maneuverability was super limited so I wasn't able to get the very middle of the lane packed, and it's not smooth and nicely sloped for water run-off so it'll likely pool. There's a bit of a slope to the right as it is; I figured I'd let it be a few weeks and then possibly dump more on it.

Still, my main need for this passage is only slight - I'll likely only have the tractor go through there spring through fall maybe ten times total when my wife needs more soil to top off garden beds or maybe if I finally get around to excavating a small pond next to the garden space up there; I have an access to our driveway at the bottom of this area and this passage provided an access to my barn road at the top, so it just provides more transit options.

Nice job! "...maneuverability was super limited so I wasn't able to get the very middle of the lane packed..." This is where back-dragging your bucket with down pressure works well (bucket flat and front tires off the ground) and turning the tractor with the rear brakes (requires flipping the tandem flange up for independent braking use)

 

[ning]

Nice job! "...maneuverability was super limited so I wasn't able to get the very middle of the lane packed..." This is where back-dragging your bucket with down pressure works well (bucket flat and front tires off the ground) and turning the tractor with the rear brakes (requires flipping the tandem flange up for independent braking use)

I did use the bucket this way and got it packed enough for walking, but I doubt it would hold the tractor directly there. I figure it'll settle more there over time and this will be a long term occasional project to smooth a little, spread a little, compact a little... once rains stop and it dries just a little bit I may use my back blade to smooth it out a bit more too, we'll see. As I said it's not an everyday use road, so being a bit lumpy is ok as long as the tractor doesn't tip over when I drive on it; I don't mind having to spend 15 seconds navigating that spot

I definitely used the independent rear brakes during this as the front of the tractor really wanted to just swing downhill - the clay wasn't gloppy but it was slightly slippery under pressure; being able to control the direction from the back of the tractor made all the difference.