Removing Small Trees & Shrubs with a Tractor

[astrohip]

We have one slightly larger at the family farm where my recently deceased father in law (age 90) grew up and he told me it looked much the same to him as it did when he was a kid.

Would love to see a picture if you have a chance.

There are at least three of us from the same area posting in this thread. We should have a meetup. Wildflower season is *always* a great excuse to get together! I'd be happy to host.

 

[bamboozled]

I built a gizmo to do this task. I need to take a picture of it but I'll try to explain it.

I also built a 3pt trailer mover, my gizmo slides into the receiver. Basically its a 4 foot long piece of 2x2x.25 square steel, that I welded some .25x2 angle iron onto the back of and use two of my box blade rippers (one on each side of the 2x2) through bolted, to rip out bushes. The angle iron is there to keep the rippers from rotating. I also added a piece of angle to the rear of the 2x2 to act as a 'plow' through the bushes to get the rippers on the far side of the bush, then I lower the 3pt, let them dig in under the bush a little bit and yank it out. Works great, and with the length it keeps me out of most bushes.

I was trying to back a brush hog over things but ripping them out and burning them has been a better solution.

 

[astrohip]

I built a gizmo to do this task. I need to take a picture of it but I'll try to explain it.

I also built a 3pt trailer mover, my gizmo slides into the receiver. Basically its a 4 foot long piece of 2x2x.25 square steel, that I welded some .25x2 angle iron onto the back of and use two of my box blade rippers (one on each side of the 2x2) through bolted, to rip out bushes. The angle iron is there to keep the rippers from rotating. I also added a piece of angle to the rear of the 2x2 to act as a 'plow' through the bushes to get the rippers on the far side of the bush, then I lower the 3pt, let them dig in under the bush a little bit and yank it out. Works great, and with the length it keeps me out of most bushes.

I was trying to back a brush hog over things but ripping them out and burning them has been a better solution.

Would love to see a pic. Have a welder that loves to play with projects like this.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Another, similar approach is in posts 13 and 19 of this thread:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/346775-3ph-root-ripper-build.html

My local fabrication shop wanted about $400 (well, Canadian dollars) to put together a blade like the one in post 13 of the cited thread...I'm still thinking about it!

 

[bamboozled]

Here is my gizmo:

 

[Lawnranger]

Nice set up Bamboozled. I have mounted my three point ripper backwards before, then hung the brush grubber off the top link and done pretty well with lifting and pulling some decent scrub trees. Nothing more than three inches wide. Once the grubber holds, it keeps the ripper from floating up and usually I can back out the tap root. I like your set up with the two teeth and the extra distance from the tractor. It looks like it will pull the roots right up. You should sell it!

 

[aarolar]

 

[astrohip]

Nice! I agree, you could sell those!

 

[bamboozled]

Thanks.

It works pretty good so far, I've been ripping out some sort of clumpy bushes, like a bunch of tree saplings grouped together, at some property my mom owns. I was trying to ram the brush hog over them but they were so tall and thick it would just push them over and ride over top of them. So I came up with that instead. Yank out the clump, then turn around and pick them up with my bucket/forks and put them in the fire.

The rippers need a little cant to the outside, junk gets built up between them but it's more of an annoyance, it doesn't really effect function. I bought a torch this week so I can cut and bend some steel for rippers and put the ones in the pics back into the box blade.

 

[Thall303]

Would love to see a picture if you have a chance.

There are at least three of us from the same area posting in this thread. We should have a meetup. Wildflower season is *always* a great excuse to get together! I'd be happy to host.

Will get picture when we go to the farm, hopefully next week.

Will also measure the circumference of the tree in the hope someone here can estimate the age.