Removing christmas trees stumps

[Egon]

Clearing:

 

[Creamer]

Leave it to Gary to have a simple effective method and Xfaxman kows what toys are out there.

 

[rd_macgregor]

If you don't want to wait for the stumps to rot, I think Thirsty's suggestion of a root ripper is a good one. If you don't have a backhoe, you can get (or have made) a similar implement for the 3-PH that will be able to just pop the small stumps out (without needing a ground man) ...all it will take is accurate driving to snag them as you drive along. Then, you can come back and collect them with a landscape rake, grapple rake or whatever you have available (hint, a FEL bucket is a poor tool for scooping up these little stumps with roots unless you are content to do only one or two at a time!).

 

[kthompson]

Maybe I totally failed to see where the type of Christmas tree was mentioned. Some every green stumps rot out reasonable well while others are very slow to rot. Can tell you in my area we have pines that rot out say in 5 years that size and others that will be there 15 years. First is to know if they rot and if so what kind of time table. If I were doing this and they would rot in say 5 years would plant between them as suggested. I have used a standard box blade to pull stumps like that but was using little heavier and about 43 hp. Was very easy and fast. If it failed to come up pulling one direction would circle it and pull from another. You could use the box blade to pull or push them into piles.

 

[MossRoad]

Just some fun things to think about.....

Typical Christmas tree farm has over 1000 trees per acre.

OP has 20 acres of Christmas tree stumps.....

That's at least 20,000 stumps, probably more.

If you spend 3 minutes on each stump, that's 60,000 minutes. That's 1000 hours, or 125 eight hour days.

Then you have 20,000 stumps sitting in a field that you have to do something with.

You also have 20,000 chuckholes to fall in while doing something with the stumps.

So depending on how fast you want that job done, and if you want the holes filled back in, and what you want done with the stumps.... things to think about.

 

[MossRoad]

I vote for the let them rot test.... :laughing:

 

[fishheadbob]

I've owned 2 Christmas Tree farms. Moss Road makes an excellent point about 10 to 20 thousand stumps. I'd vote for letting them rot for a year or two to soften up, then I'd rent, beg, or borrow enough horsepower to pull a moldboard plow through the stumps. At least 3 or 4 bottoms and 70 to 100 horsepower with good treads for good traction should be sufficient to turn over the stumps without one of them stopping the tractor. Once they're in full contact with the ground they'll deteriorate quickly - like a few more years - and you could do anything with the land. That all assumes the tree owner cuts every last tree out. Odds are that some will be butt ugly and not worth cutting, so factor that into the labor equation.

 

[Egon]

Just some fun things to think about.....

Typical Christmas tree farm has over 1000 trees per acre.

OP has 20 acres of Christmas tree stumps.....

That's at least 20,000 stumps, probably more.

If you spend 3 minutes on each stump, that's 60,000 minutes. That's 1000 hours, or 125 eight hour days.

Then you have 20,000 stumps sitting in a field that you have to do something with.

You also have 20,000 chuckholes to fall in while doing something with the stumps.

So depending on how fast you want that job done, and if you want the holes filled back in, and what you want done with the stumps.... things to think about.

Moss; one starts to manually remove the stumps one by one. The chances are most will be rotted out before you finish!

If the stumps are required to be removed a breaking disc and tractor of suitable size will make short work of them.

 

[k0ua]

I vote for the let them rot test.... :laughing:

Depends on what the are. I have one Eastern Red Cedar stump that size still in my front yard. Cut flush with the ground. The house was built in 1992 and I suspect it was cut down then. I arrived on the scene in 2002 and the stump was there when I came. The stump is still there today. There were still several smaller ones that I did pop out with the bucket over the years but this one has resisted any efforts like that. I haven't tried it for a while but it seems to still be in pretty good shape. I guess it depends on how much rot resisting resin is in the tree. But some of them can resist rot for a very long time.

 

[FatTire]

If just doing a 100 or 200 I'd try the root ripper. (Plus it would give me an excuse to actually buy a root ripper.) Lot's of good ideas in this thread. Going back to the early suggestions, for this acreage I think I'd hire a dozer. I imagine a skilled operator would learn quickly how much blade to use and ground damage would be minimal. I'd tell him to go fast and I'd handle all the clean up. 2 days is my guess for the dozer work.