Stump grindings

[Builder]

I won a bid to clear an acre of woods with about 10 100' tall poplars and 15 smallers ash and assorted other trees. I subbed-out the tree work (too close to existing house, my insurance won't allow me to do it anyway). My buddy that owns the tree company also did the stump grinding. Tree work & stumps are done.

I have never had much luck growing grass where stump grindings are present. I scooped out as much of the grindings as possible over the stumps with my loader bucket, 8' rake and manually with a pitch fork. As you can imagine, grindings are all over the place. Can't get 'em all with landscape rake. There's probably 5-10 tons of them already piled-up.

My experience has been that the grindinigs absorb all the water & nutrients from the grass seed and prevents it from growing. How much would you remove before grass will take? No matter what we do or how much we rake, there's still a decent amount mixed with the topsoil.

Would like to avoid trucking-in more soil.

Suggestions?

 

[Lil_FarmerJim]

My experience with Stump grindings is they don't allow squat to grow till they start to break down. Great for weed control, lossy for anything else.

I would say you already have the right idea with getting them pilled up, and and any remaining, till them into the soil as best as you can, grass will grow in the top layer and eventually once the remaining break down they will become nutrients for the soil. But it will take some time.

So bottom line is if you can get some of the loam that is buried under them on top, you will be in much better shape. Depending on how bad the routes are you could us a roto-tiller. Else a bottom plow and flip the ground.

HTH,

Jim

 

[Builder]

Jim,

I plan on removing as much as possible then harley raking them down into the soil with my rake.

 

[daveinnh]

In 2002 we had ~ 7 acres cleared of mostly pine, some hemlock and minor oak & maple saplings. We had about 10 straight pine set aside for our timber-frame house.

The contractor (DS Burl) specialized in landclearing, skidded the saw logs out, chipped the remainder, then pulled and chipped the stumps. We had a local contractor doze over the stump chip piles and spread with his Kubota (before we bought ours).

Then we had an all-terrian truck apply a lime and fertilizer mix (I recall 1 ton/acre lime) Then the seed was applied (Blue Seal Equi-Graze). The Kubota tractor raked and harrowed it about - 2 ways.

The 2003 season was a liitle sparse. The 2004 season was thick and growing fast. This year I think we'll need to have some more lime spread.


The root chips provide great erosion resistance. They also provide texture when the soil doesn't have much.

Maybe ask you local (used to be SCS - Soil Conservation District) ag extension before spending addt'l effort?

 

[AKfish]

"The solution to pollution - is dilution!"

Or additional lime to neutralize the acidic soil conditions that occur when the woody pulp is breaking down.

AKfish