should I worry about this thorny problem?

[MossRoad]

Whether I have then pushed over with a dozer or cut them, those thorns are going to land all over the area when the trees fall. It used to be a small feedlot next to the barn years ago. Dragging them may spread the thorns, but I have to get them out of the way in order to keep this area cut. I'd just have to cut it with maybe my Bachtold brush mower that has solid wheels.

While I could move sections of the trunks with a grapple to mitigate spreading thorns, that means I'd have to rent a tracked loader or hire someone.

Might be worth having a tree service just pick em and grind em in place, right into the back of a truck. But, could be expensive.

How much is it to rent a tracked skid steer with a grapple for a weekend?

You could drop the trees all at once, let them sit until a weekend, and then pick them up and carry them to a permanent location. You'd still have thorns in the original area to be concerned with, but maybe not too many in the transportation corridor.

 

[2manyrocks]

$340 a day to rent a kubota svl75 CTL, but I'd need a 10,000# capacity trailer which I do not have.

$329 a day to rent a stand on mini skid steer which my trailer can carry, but I'm not sure they have a grapple for it.

It isn't that much more to rent a dozer, but I don't know what the delivery fee would be.

My guess is a tree service wouldn't want to drive their trucks into the area because of the thorns. It would also take some effort to get a truck into that area which was laid out during the time when mules were used to farm. They weren't concerned about vehicle access in those days.

 

[2manyrocks]

Update: I called the local rental company to discuss this. They said these thorns are not good for rubber tracks which cost about $4,000 to replace and recommended something with steel tracks which they don't have available to rent. The owner of rental company had some clearing work done by a local guy who owns both a skid steer with a mulcher head as well as a dozer. He was satisfied with the work so I gave the guy a call and will try to get his assessment of whether he can do this work and what it will cost.

 

[jaxs]

The per hour rate for dozer and operator is reasonable when compared to tractor and operator so that is probably your best option. Just say on top of those pups or you'll become known as 2manythorns.

 

[2manyrocks]

I met with the dozer guy this morning. $200 delivery fee and $140 hour to do the actual work. He used to have a Cat compact track loader with the rotary mulching head that he said he would have used to grind up the thorn trees. He said he wasn't bothered by the thorns and his mulcher would have been ideal to grind them up. Problem is his CTL and the mulcher caught fire and burned up last year. He said the DEF unit was cherry red. Not sure if he had a hydraulic leak or a fuel leak or exactly what happened but he suspected the DEF had something to do with the fire. He was looking at about $175,000 to replace his equipment, but couldn't find any replacement other than used stuff that they were asking new prices for.

So...he'll push the locust trees out with the dozer and pile them up as well do some other dozer work I'd like to get done.

 

[leonz]

All you need to do now is use wood brush killer in a sprayer if you do not a have
a shallow well nearby.

 

[3gunr]

Last yr my neighbor had an acre cleared of honey locust and cedars , the guy used a small excavator to pull them out of the ground and a skid steer with grapple to move and pile them up. He charged 850 bucks and did a great job, We planted the area in sunflowers and millet and dove hunted over it last fall. i have lots of honey locust on my place and i cut them and spray with tordon, mostly i leave them lay because i have no good way of moving them either.

 

[2manyrocks]

The dozer guy's wife had some medical issues so he couldn't do the job.

This may not have been the most efficient way, but I ended up finding a portable gas winch for $800-900 on eBay (PCW-4000). GX50 Gas-Powered Portable Winch. The cost added up by the time I added pulleys, rope, caribeaners, but the winch solved several issues.

1. It allowed directional falling of the trees to make them all fall in the same area even though they leaned in different directions. 2. Clearing the fall area before falling the trees allowed me to see where the thorns landed, too, and get them up to burn in a burn barrel. 3. The winch makes it possible to winch the trunks out of the way without a mini-ex or mini skid. 4. Hopefully, the thorns that I've missed are confined to this fall area.

Someone recommended that I remove the thorns as far up the tree as possible before cutting. Pole saw is fast for this, but throws thorns. I ended up using a cut and hold pruner to get them off the tree to say 6-7'. Then removed the others after the trees were felled.

One thing I noticed was that I underestimated the volume of thorns. I filled a 55 gallon drum with thorns from just one tree and that was after compacting them in the drum. They burn quickly.

The triangular shape of the thorns naturally means that multiple thorns will end up pointing upwards when these things land on the ground.

If I tried to do remove them with a mini-ex or skid, I think I'd have spread the thorns more than doing it this way.

I suspect the older timers who didn't have access to today's power equipment would laugh at me. They had to cut these things by hand to make fence posts. Oddly enough, I searched the internet quite a bit for how to handle these things, and didn't find much discussion.

If I can get comfortable that I've gotten the thorns cleared out, might take the Terramite backhoe and dig out the stumps. Hand raking the area seems like the next part of this job.