texasjohn
Super Member
good to hear that you have a way forward now...when it's done, you will have a lot of torn up ground, which can be a good thing ..
Root'n Huisache Trees - How to get the root out?
- Thread starter SanDucerro
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OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
Ain't that the truth! Once I finish mangling the area I'll go back through with the disc harrow... :laughing:
I'm thinking I'll replow it after that with the single bottom plow and then redisc one more time. But yes - you are 100% correct - it's all pretty tore up right now. We'll be back out there this morning to see if we can finsh the inital root plowing - at least we're making progress!
OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
Thought of a way to get pictures from the farm, so here's the root plow...
And our "other" project for the weekend - building the Post Hole Digger purchased from Everything Attachments...
And our "other" project for the weekend - building the Post Hole Digger purchased from Everything Attachments...
Gary Fowler
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2008
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- Bismarck Arkansas
- Tractor
- 2009 Kubota RTV 900, 2009 Kubota B26 TLB & 2010 model LS P7010
That thing is massive and should uproot a lot of stuff. I would think running it across all four corners of a stump with it going as deep as possible and then hooking it in the stump center and lifting 3PH and moving forward at the same time would uproot a pretty big stump, but put it in Low / Low gear and watch for the front wheels to come up. Those hardy ones are why I prefer a back hoe.
OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
Good suggestion. I'll give that a try.
We may be washed out today. Had pretty heavy rains last night and I'm not sure if we'll be able to get back out today. If not, then it'll be next week before I can get back out here.
On another side note - learned a lot about 3pt hitches this weekend. The new post hole digger's auger didn't clear the ground once we finished bolting everything up. Looking at the available adjustments and reworking everything finally got the auger off the ground. Had to reset the 3pt arm mounting points to the lowest holes on both sides. That raised the height of the whole system and now the auger clears by a good 6" - not as much as I'd like, but doable. Also experimenting with the top link mounting points on the digger itself resulted in different heights to the finished setup. It was interesting that you could go too far in either direction with the mounting bar on the boom pole. If you did you lost spacing between the auger and the ground. Had to find the right point in the middle to get the boom at it's highest level.
texasjohn
Super Member
OMG!! That is a ROOT PLOW!!
You got just the tool you needed!! Yep, gonna be a bunch more roots still there...glad you got the root balls up anyway...and looks like you got a bunch of rain last night, too.
You got just the tool you needed!! Yep, gonna be a bunch more roots still there...glad you got the root balls up anyway...and looks like you got a bunch of rain last night, too.
OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
I have a new profound respect for Huisache trees - those are tough (insert favorite colororful phase here) trees. Their root systems are NOT to be messed with.
We did our best and ran the root plow over the entire acre we needed done. Four - count 'em - sheer bolts latter and we were finished. There are still root balls in the area, but they are marked and if they wind up in the rows we plant we'll deal with them at that time. I tried EVERYTHING to pull them out and they just don't budge - those roots are tough! From my experience, they will NOT come out with a root plow - at least not in the fashion you would think they would. Luckily for me, the vineyard rows are 10 foot wide - so there is a good possibility that the "row" we plant the vines in will not even come close to the root balls. If they do, then I'll deal with them one by one.
I did discover I had the root plow's top link too short (thanks to the wife's video from yesterday), so I lenghtened the top link and got the plow to go even deeper. Matter of fact, I got it to go so deep that I had to lighten up on the hydraulics a bit. Even so, the Huisache tree's root ball tap root was still never severed (at least not that I know). It seemed I managed to catch the root ball (about 15" under the surface) way more than I wanted too.
Having said all of this, I still feel the Root Plow was a great investment and easily paid for itself this weekend. :thumbsup:
We did our best and ran the root plow over the entire acre we needed done. Four - count 'em - sheer bolts latter and we were finished. There are still root balls in the area, but they are marked and if they wind up in the rows we plant we'll deal with them at that time. I tried EVERYTHING to pull them out and they just don't budge - those roots are tough! From my experience, they will NOT come out with a root plow - at least not in the fashion you would think they would. Luckily for me, the vineyard rows are 10 foot wide - so there is a good possibility that the "row" we plant the vines in will not even come close to the root balls. If they do, then I'll deal with them one by one.
I did discover I had the root plow's top link too short (thanks to the wife's video from yesterday), so I lenghtened the top link and got the plow to go even deeper. Matter of fact, I got it to go so deep that I had to lighten up on the hydraulics a bit. Even so, the Huisache tree's root ball tap root was still never severed (at least not that I know). It seemed I managed to catch the root ball (about 15" under the surface) way more than I wanted too.
Having said all of this, I still feel the Root Plow was a great investment and easily paid for itself this weekend. :thumbsup:
OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
Not that much rain last night, but over the last week we've been pretty much soaked - so much so that there is no way we could have tried out the new post hole digger.OMG!! That is a ROOT PLOW!!
You got just the tool you needed!! Yep, gonna be a bunch more roots still there...glad you got the root balls up anyway...and looks like you got a bunch of rain last night, too.
The rain did make for good root plowing though - so that was a blessing!
I forgot to add on my previous post that we have 5 root balls we could not remove in the acre we needed done. We "should" be able to work around those.
OP
SanDucerro
Gold Member
One more "fun" story...
The wife was a tremendous help today. She waited at the end of the rows we were cutting and used a shovel to clear the build up off the root plow's cutting edge. She did great until the snake appeared - then she kinda freaked. The poor snake was a rat snake - probably asleep in it's winter hole - that I managed to root plow out of existance. It was long - about four feet (well - that was what was left of it) - but dead as a door nail and stuck to the root plow. Kinda felt sorry for it... The wife on the other hand would have nothing to do with scrapping the blade on that run! :laughing:
The wife was a tremendous help today. She waited at the end of the rows we were cutting and used a shovel to clear the build up off the root plow's cutting edge. She did great until the snake appeared - then she kinda freaked. The poor snake was a rat snake - probably asleep in it's winter hole - that I managed to root plow out of existance. It was long - about four feet (well - that was what was left of it) - but dead as a door nail and stuck to the root plow. Kinda felt sorry for it... The wife on the other hand would have nothing to do with scrapping the blade on that run! :laughing:
PILOON
Super Star Member
Last fall I made a tool that might just do the job.
It is a massive tooth, 16" long made from a truck axle and attaches to my bucket like a single clamp on bucket fork only center mounted.
Naturally the welding is HD deep penetration.
I have plucked foot sized stones from the driveway, root balls as well as complete 2" or so trees.
Procedure is to tilt bucked downwards about 45 deg and drive the pin into and under the root then tilt bucket upwards. In most cases the entire ball comes free but if an errant root remains you simply manouver for better placement and repeat. I found that very little soil was lifted with this process.
It is a massive tooth, 16" long made from a truck axle and attaches to my bucket like a single clamp on bucket fork only center mounted.
Naturally the welding is HD deep penetration.
I have plucked foot sized stones from the driveway, root balls as well as complete 2" or so trees.
Procedure is to tilt bucked downwards about 45 deg and drive the pin into and under the root then tilt bucket upwards. In most cases the entire ball comes free but if an errant root remains you simply manouver for better placement and repeat. I found that very little soil was lifted with this process.