Pulling tree out with wheel & chain?

[RjCorazza]

My neighbor just pulled a small stump using a spare pickup truck tire / wheel, with chain. It worked very well! We had to reset for a second pull to get the whole stump out, but all told it took maybe 2-3 minutes.

 

[ponytug]

The herbicide you paint on the stump will not affect anything else around it. By the time the flush stump rots out the hericide will be inert.

Perhaps. It depends on the herbicide, the soil, and the climate. Where @ning is, many commonly used tree herbicides are persistent, e.g. garlon.

Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost, and Grass Clippings | NC State Extension Publications

Many farmers and home gardeners have reported damage to vegetable and flower crops after applying horse or livestock manure, compost, hay, or grass clippings to the soil. The symptoms reported include poor seed germination; death of young plants; twisted, cupped, and elongated leaves; misshapen...

content.ces.ncsu.edu

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.compostingcouncil.org/resource/resmgr/images/USCC-PH-Fact-Sheet-1-for-web.pdf

Persistence of Herbicides in Soil

While it is desirable for the chemicals to control weeds during the season of application, it is not desirable for them to persist and affect subsequent crop growth.

extension.psu.edu

All the best,

Peter

 

[ning]

The herbicide you paint on the stump will not effect anything else around it. By the time the flush stump rots out the hericide will be inert.

tbh I'm not confident that what's claimed about herbicide safety is accurate

there's plenty of evidence that the manufacturers play fast & loose with the truth, and the truth only comes out later; i'm happier to put in the effort to do things the right way for me and the environment

 

[MTGreen]

tbh I'm not confident that what's claimed about herbicide safety is accurate

there's plenty of evidence that the manufacturers play fast & loose with the truth, and the truth only comes out later; i'm happier to put in the effort to do things the right way for me and the environment

Agreed. Witness Monsanto...

 

[newbury]

tbh I'm not confident that what's claimed about herbicide safety is accurate

there's plenty of evidence that the manufacturers play fast & loose with the truth, and the truth only comes out later; i'm happier to put in the effort to do things the right way for me and the environment

yup, take claims like that with a spoonful of DDT

 

[ning]

Have you considered what might happen if the chain breaks? Could you double up on cables? Use a marine rope?

I hadn't seen much elasticity from a chain break before, but decided to do a bit of a web search before making an ass out of myself here
and yeah apparently you can easily get killed by chains too, though they're way less elastic than wire rope & bouncy straps (not sure why people seem to think that kinetic recovery ropes & straps won't break either - if they do break, they're going to be worse than just about anything with all that stored energy in them!).

so

I'm thinking probably best to weigh down the pulling chain in at least a couple spots and possibly attach it to something to try to catch it if it does break loose.

 

[ponytug]

I hadn't seen much elasticity from a chain break before, but decided to do a bit of a web search before making an ass out of myself here
and yeah apparently you can easily get killed by chains too, though they're way less elastic than wire rope & bouncy straps (not sure why people seem to think that kinetic recovery ropes & straps won't break either - if they do break, they're going to be worse than just about anything with all that stored energy in them!).

so

I'm thinking probably best to weigh down the pulling chain in at least a couple spots and possibly attach it to something to try to catch it if it does break loose.

Keeping the pulling chain close to ground level helps, as one of the videos above shows, but yes, it does end up being about stored energy. I have a couple of grade 70 chains that I use for important jobs, and a couple of pieces of larger, but ungraded chain that I use for random light weight work, where the chains might get dragged. I keep my grade 70s clean, dry, and off of anything that might stress a link when in use.

I vividly remember cutting a safety chain to length for a new to me trailer. I had to use 48" bolt cutters, and when the link finally parted the halves flew about forty feet. (Yes, I had to go find them. I knew they were sharp and we had horses that walked through the area.) I was/am amazed at the stored energy.

Stay safe out there.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Rockbadchild]

not sure the size of your tractor but if big enough a rootrake grappler would work… i have pulled aspen tree and willow trees and they also have very deep roots but my tractor as 60hp

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I just pulled up a 12" tree few days ago. I don't use a wheel, just tie chain as high as I can reach. Used two chains 20' so tree wouldn't hit tractor. Pulled many with an old 4x4 truck I have around here. But, a storm came through and a big tree fell on it, haven't fixed it yet. I've pulled up trees so big that with 40' of chain the tree was still past my front bumper. Another thing, with a long chain, and I have one that is 43' long, you can back up and change direction of pull, seems to really help. I used an 18 wheeler rim once and was not impressed. Easier and quicker to just tie on and pull over.

 

[dirttoys]

I've got a number of scrub oak that I need to clear out of an area, and I'd prefer to yank them out rather than just cut them short as they sprout suckers madly and I prefer to avoid poisons.

I've managed to pull out smaller specimens with my tractor using a chain - up to a few inches in diameter - but when they get bigger than this it's not doable, as these scrub oak have crazy strong roots. these aren't anything like a pine tree, which while it's got a tap root there's not a lot else and they come out readily just being pushed over (besides, cutting those is permanent)

I've seen people use an old wheel so that there's an initial upwards pull, and I have questions before trying to find a reasonable wheel for this -

1 - I'm guessing the bigger the wheel, the better? I tried using a piece of steel I-beam I had, but it was too unstable and fell over to the side before I could get enough tension on it (working solo) to have it do any good

2 - has anyone had luck with this wheel method pulling scrub oak or something with similarly obnoxious roots?

There's way too many of them to dig out with the backhoe.

I've seen a few videos of the rim pulling (working and going poorly), I would cut and spray, but, many people don't like the herbicides these days.

I am a little surprised you believe setting up the wheel and chain safely and pulling them would be faster than the backhoe, I would expect it to be double or more time than digging them?

Best,

ed