Recommended attachment for roots

[poolecw]

I I recently had some dozer work done at my property. The dozer cleared about 1 acre of forrested hardwood behind my house. I am left with various size roots all over the place. Most roots are very hard to pull up. My question to you guys is what attachment would be best suited to clean this up? The end goal is to seed it and turn into part of my lawn. I am shopping around for a good used tractor with FEL and hope to have one by the next two weeks.

Do you recommend a root grapple, root rake, or simply a tiller?

Thanks!

 

[bcp]

I wouldn't buy something just to get the roots out, with no more use after that.

Not knowing your area, or the actual root size, or your tractor size, I think I would get a box blade, sized wider than the tractor, as heavy as possible, with scarifiers that would go down 3-5 inches. Shorten the top link all the way and set the scarifiers all the way down, then drive around. Deeper roots can be ignored. The box blade will have many uses later.

Bruce

 

[kthompson]

Bruce makes good sense. I also like it for i prefer pulling roots than pushing with fel.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I also agree with Bruce's thinking, especially not knowing what you actually have. Roots are tough. They often tend to cut on one end and come loose on the other so you have long strings that won't come up no matter how many time you run a scarifier over them. Besides the box blade another option I would consider is renting a tiller attachment to chop up the roots. You may need to do both depending on the size of the roots and how much pulling traction you can get with the tractor and scarifiers.

gg

 

[bigtiller]

I would hire/buy/borrow or rent a heavy offset disc for a first pass. A root small enough to be shredded with a tiller is not the problem. It is the bigger ones that will wrap around the tines making a big mess and the even larger ones that will stop the tiller suddenly. A heavy disc should cut them into manageable pieces and level out the dozer damage.

 

[jeff9366]

KTHOMPSON is right: Tractors are designed to PULL. Forget the FEL for anything heavy duty. Use the Three Point Hitch. ~~Let those big rear wheels work.

I use a Dirt Dog (brand) Field Cultivator, which has been highly satisfactory pulling roots, vines and corms from woodland Florida sandy-loam soil. I regularly pull up 3" diameter Water Oak roots and wild grapes vines. The corms are mostly wild climbing rose, locally termed sweet potato vines. I have pulled up single corms weighing sixty pounds.

Parabolic tines grip masses of detritus, which can be pulled considerable distances for disposal/burning losing very little. (DO NOT discount this transport function.)

Dirt Dog is located in Commerce, Georgia.

LINK: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...ement-vine-root-removal-woods.html?highlight=

ETA (everytfhingattachments.com), three hundred miles distant, offers Fred Cain (brand) Field Cultivators delivered to your property.

I have used the scarifiers on a Box Blade. Box Blade not satisfactory for this work except, perhaps, in a small area, if you already have a Box Blade. (Photo #6)

A Subsoiler is another option, especially if you want to remove rotted stumps, but you lose Field Cultivater combing and transport attributes.

VIDEO: subsoiler stumps - YouTube

BUY ENOUGH TRACTOR​

 

[Maxify55]

I have a root rake with a grapple and, Jeff must've on site the day we began a project.

I had a needed to provide underground irrigation from an upper arena area to a lower section of land and under a driveway.

My weapon of choice was a sub-soiler.

Adjacent to the driveway are century oaks approx. 50' away.

Wherever there was anything over 1"-2" in diameter that the root rake brought to the surface but balked at anything larger.

I brought out the sub-soiler to either cut or pull the root to the surface for cutting/chopping.

The versatility and power offered by the 3pt hydraulics added to the pulling power of the tractor made a huge difference in completion of the task.

Make sure you have lots of ballast out front! You'll need it!


Enjoy! I just love digging in the dirt

Must be a character flaw:banghead:

 

[jeff9366]

Here are used tractors listed on eBay, using Chattanooga, TN as the search point.

LINK: -Caterpillar in Industrial Tractors | eBay

 

[the old grind]

My patch is peppered with those elms with tiny leaves, and saplings sprout everywhere (along with buckthorn, honeysuckle, mulberry, and Autumn olive).

A 3" elm or mulberry can have a lateral root just below the surface that's finger-thick running several yards out into the lawn and doesn't 'come out pretty' ... Ratchet rake thumbsup gets up a lot of the small stuff when clearing an area, roots & that, but sometimes I have to jump down and hook up the "Brush Grubber" for the larger or deeper running ones.

+1 on using sub-soiler or BB with scarifiers at full depth to find them once the above-ground bits are "outta there'.

 

[poolecw]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Any thoughts in using harrows to chop the roots up followed by a landscape rack for collecting? Most roots are less than 2" but some are big around as my forearm. I should also note that there are rocks all over the place as well.

 

[jeff9366]

Why did not you mention rocks in Post #1?
How large are the rocks?
Do you have gravel or >3" rocks with inertia?

Three Point Hitch mounted Disc Harrows are banks of wheels. They do not penetrate very deep and roll over most obstructions. Three Point Hitch mounted Disc Harrows are secondary tillage implements.

An (primary tillage) Offset Disc Harrow, as mentioned in Post #5, might work, but you are considering a 1,200+ pound implement, with a lot of draft force resistance, requiring a 80+ horsepower, heavy tractor to pull. Deep furrows will remain after the Offset passes. You would want to hire the tractor and implement, not buy. Do you wish to chop roots, or do you wish to remove?

VIDEO ~ notice moist soil: ROME TRCW24 In Sod/Rock/Roots - YouTube
Rome Plow is located in Cedartown, Georgia.

All Disc Harrows are soil mixers.

You need to determine your top soil depth before inviting an Offset. You do not want to mix poor quality sub-soil into fertile top soil.

If conditions are exceptionally tough, have the bulldozer return with a rake.

A Landscape Rake is not good for piling debris from land clearing. It is for grading and collecting small debris as part of grading. A Ratchet Rake bucket attachment is much better for piling debris than a Landscape Rake. I have both. Neither will transport debris, which is a function the Field Cultivator provides. Ratchet Rake also recommended in Post #9.

I still recommend a ~~$900, spring-protected Field Cultivator, from experience, but that might change after you describe your rocks. You might want a $400/ETA - $1,000/Monroe Tufline Subsoiler to first loosen the soil/rocks up, then comb. Moist soil essential.

VIDEO: How to Use a Ripper / Field Cultivator - Gardening Series - YouTube

For lawn, 10" deep, friable, top soil is ample.

 

[poolecw]

Sorry... I guess I did a poor job at describing my soil conditions. Let me start over. I live on 18 acres in north west Ga. My house is in the middle of traditional appalachian hardwood forest. I recently had about 1.5 acres behind my house cleared. Larger trees remain while trees and brush less than 5" in diameter were pushed up by the dozer. The dozer guy did not use a root rack. The soil has a lot of what I call chirt...sand/clay rock. Most rocks are smaller than your fist. Rocks are both on the surface and below the surface. As for roots, most roots are smaller than 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Most are buried with one end sticking out of the dirt.

I want to get as much of the roots and rocks out as I can. I know that smaller roots will rot and can be mowed over. Once I get as much trash cleared as possible, I intend to use a box blade to smooth everything out.

 

[1quik70]

I just did a similar job clearing a food plot in the woods. I used my FEL to push the small trees and brush out of the way, and began to rip up the roots and vines with the scarifiers on my grader scraper and followed up with several passes with the disc. I figure everything left will begin to rot and provide OM to my soil.

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

For just one acre, I would probably used my box blade's scarifiers to dig up and expose as many of them as possible. And then I'd go buy a battery powered reciprocating saw and just saw them off as low as I could.

 

[franklinute]

I would use a chisel plow and set it at 12-14" deep. It will definitely pull one
end of the roots out of the ground. Make several passes over the field in different
directions. With my chisel plow I can drag up large piles of roots, drive to the
edge of the field, raise the plow and backup to unload the debri. If you have
existing trees you don't want damaged stay 10-15' away from the good trees.

 

[Egon]

If you have a box blade with scarifiers use the scarifiers. Make passes from different directions.

Then resort to whatever implement is at hand for the cultivation.

A very large disk behind a 200 hp tractor would be ideal but they would require renting rather than owning.

 

[PILOON]

Shucks. my little Mitsu has teeth on the FEL.
I simply tilt the bucket to about 90 deg and back drag and collect just about all the roots you want, OK maybe I need a second pass but sure does the job. A bit of valve feathering from time to time and I only collect roots!
I then scoop the roots and dump where they don't matter. Works for me!

A toothed bucket is a whole new world! Try it. (most valuable add on for me!)
Ratchet rake is good but tooth bar is best, (imho)