To Grapple or not

[frogfish]

I have approx 70 acres of woods which I had about 70% of it logged. When they log it they left a lot of branches (slash) from the trees, so now my woods look bare with a lot of brush and branches covering most of the ground.

My question is how to handle the slash. Should I just leave it and over the next 5 years or so some of it will decay naturally, should I try to find a guy that might want it for grinding up into mulch, (free if they come and get it) or should I buy a grapple buchet for my Kubota B3200 and try to clear it myself (which seems like a really big project)?

Any thoughts?

Thanks, wayne

 

[dave1949]

It's best to leave it. That is seedling cover and nourishment for the next generation of trees and the logger did it right.

Now is a good time to push out any trails you want, but I would just leave the rest.

 

[TripleR]

What do you plan on doing with the land and what does it look like now? This my well dictate how to proceed. Loggers left an impenetrable mess in ours, so we cleared areas through it, burned some and left other replanting much of it.

I do like a grapple, but with that size tractor and that much land, I'm not sure how much you can accomplish. A couple of years ago we rented a tracked skid loader for a week to clean up some areas to spare the wear, tear and flats on our tractors, but my son is an experienced operator, it would have been a waste of money otherwise.

Good luck and I'll b following this as others have lots more experience than I.

 

[oosik]

Like has been said - you have a fairly small tractor and with a properly sized grapple it could take an inordinately long time. If its not a horrid tangled mess - just leave it and let it rot down. To give you an idea - I recently purchased an appropriately sized grapple and third member controller for my tractor. The grapple was $3200, the controller installed was $1200. I could have purchased a cheaper grapple but have had my full of cheap implements. I will be using my grapple to collect, move and stack LARGE rocks(think rock wall) and to move chunks of large diameter(up to 32 inch) ponderosa pine trees.
If you do want to clear the limbs, etc it may be best to rent a tracked loader - thereby having the work go faster and not creating wear/tear on your equipment.

 

[i579rbd]

What is your goal for the land? if it needs to be cleared off and you buy a grapple, what are you going to do with your piles? Having asked that-get the grapple!!! Whatever you do with it will be fun....

 

[txdon]

If you plan on clearing out 2 acres get a grapple, otherwise let it rot. Most of it will be rot anyway before you get to it.

 

[SPIKER]

Kind of depends, if the slash is up off the ground it will take much longer for it to rot down. If they piled it up then dealing with the piles can be burnt or flattened down for quicker return to the earth.

Small grapple is good for regular every day use but if the project is real big you may be over whelmed with the amount of work it will take and hours on the machine.

Other chance is most cases a lot of firewood can be taken out of the top branches, see if there are any people nearby that would like to come in and clean up the tops for firewood. Contact some local firewood sellers and or put ad in the local CL/Paper etc.

M

 

[kwbretired]

You may be able to do a control burn. The forestry dept. in the little town where I have my property, 175 acres, said they would control burn it for a few dollars per acre. I'm thinking seriously about doing this in a couple of years before I build a house. Unless you get rid of all the down limbs it is like gasoline waiting to be ignited.