Which is best way to clear land?

Billc · Mar 27, 2001

I am about to clear 20 acres. The land is a little rolly, nothing bad. I have some 12 yr old pines that I'll cut off, lots of little hard woods, and some big hardwood. The land used to be farm land 30 years ago. The pines were cut off about 12 years ago. Nothings been done to it since. I'm turing it into pasture.

What is the best way to clear the trees? The big hardwoods I'll leave standing. The pines I'll cut and sell. That leaves lots of 12 year old hardwoods...mainly Sweetgums. I've used my tractor to try and clear but lots of the hard woods spring back up, they're very hard to dig out. That leaves me with two choices: First, a track loader. Second, a track hoe. Which is best?

I've used and watched track loaders work a lot. That seems to be the common machine of distruction. I've watched a track hoe work once and it was incredible. It had a thumb on the arm. The operator would get a hold of a tree...some really big trees...and pull them out of the ground root and all. Then he'd shake the trees to get the dirt off the root ball. Then stack the trees in a pile or onto a logging trailer. Amazing to watch.

Last year we cleared 8 acres using a track loader. He did a great job, but was wondering if the track hoe will do a better job. Plus a the track hoe can easily dig large holes to burry the stumps in.

Once the trees are cleared I'll get a dozer to grade.

Any thoughts or advice?

Bill Cook

RobS · Mar 27, 2001

Bill, I'm looking at doing some clearing myself, though a much smaller scale than yours. I was talking to a friend about it the other day. This guy has a Deere 450 dozer and an older industrial tractor with a loader. He says the best machine for the task is the trackhoe. Like you said, it can pull the trees up and shake the dirt off the ball. The operator can push a tree down from a high position with lots of leverage. With his dozer, he can only push a couple of feet up on the trunk and doesn't get the leverage. He'll also use his tractor and loader by pushing up high, but he's traction limited. He also said that whatever I do, don't cut the trees down. That leaves no choice but to dig the stumps out with a hoe which takes a lot longer than pushing them over.

I'm anxious to hear other comments on this same topic /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Anonymous Poster · Mar 27, 2001

It depends a lot on how big the trees are, and how densely packed.

I cleared a 2 acre area that had over 100 4" to 6" diameter ash trees (measured at chest height), mixed in with dense brush. I brush hogged everything I could, then cut the trees about 3' to 4' high with a chain saw, and dragged out everything but the stumps. The next time I had a dozer on the premises I had the operator push the stumps in a pile. It only took him about an hour. I pulled all the stumps out and cleaned up the ground with a box blade and landscape rake.

cowboydoc · Mar 27, 2001

Bill,
If you're going to have a dozer come in anyway I would just get one to do the trees too. I had a guy come in on my place and in two days he had the whole thing cleared, brush and trees piled, and the land smoothed out and ready to plant. He pushed the trees out, knocked the dirt off as they slid to the piles and pushed everything up and ready to burn. He would have burned the piles to but I wanted to get some firewood and fenceposts out of it before it was burned.

TWINKLE_TOES · Mar 27, 2001

Bill,

I selectively cleared about 2 acres with a D7 Cat and rippers. Maples and Alders to 36" worked fine. Some of the larger stumps where tough even for the D7.
Al

scruffy · Mar 27, 2001

Of course (tongue in cheek here) You could check with the forest service for any planned burns, they always have a tendancy to go out of control! ;o) Not serious. I think they have a hidden rule to only hire arsonist for their planned burn control program. (again tongue in cheek!)

Anonymous Poster · Mar 28, 2001

From my experience, most "professional" operators take a dim view of you wanting to leave ANYTHING on the property, and it is easy to damage your remaining trees. I've posted about this before on other "land clearing" threads. If the guy doesn't seem like he wants to listen to anything, forget him. For this reason, and depending on how many trees you are leaving etc, a track hoe is much cleaner as the trees can be removed without damaging the others, and without driving over the roots of the remaining trees. For COMPLETELY clearing the property nothing beats a D11 with a clearing rake! They just make passes like we mow our grass!

If you're burning, then a track loader is more efficient to have on hand to run the stumps to the burning pile(s) while the trackhoe pushes them over. The trackhoe can make a nice Igloo of stumps that will burn even in a downpour. You can also push them over or pull them out and then cut the stumps off with the tree in the air a couple feet, saves backs and saw chains. For big jobs those tree processors are coming into the scene, they grab the tree, twist it horizontal cut off the stump and delimb it and it's computer cuts it into the right size log! That is very impressive to watch.

There are good operators out there that can clear with anything, it can take some time to find one. For most of my stump digging (I bought 5 acres with flush cut stumps) I rented a trackhoe. More fun then being 10 years old (or 45) at Disneyland! I don't know if that takes longer or not, I didn't care it was such a thrill (after 15 years of teensy-hoe) to just grab stumps and yank them out, turn sideways and toss them.

All the work I did was no where near anything important so I felt comfortable. If you decide to rent one, and you already have a backhoe on a Kubota JD NH etc, keep in mind most of the big ones use a different digging method with the two levers. I was Joe Goofball for at least a good hour and never was anywhere near efficient. Some of the newer ones, especially Japanese ones (actually the Cats are Japanese too) Kobelco, Komatsu etc have a switch to alter the controls to the different patterns. Why there is more then one pattern clogs my brain. Beta/VHS? who knows.

A trackhoe, like our little Kubotas, can rake gently and clean the ground up, floating on the surface, making nice brush piles to move later. A guy with a dozer or trackloader can't "feel" or see what he is doing until it's too late, again this applies to trees you are leaving. I don't know how many times I've seen this done and the trees are damaged and have to come down at great expense later after the house is built and the tree now has to come down a chunk at a time.

I take it you are not going to burn? Burying stumps is great if you need the fill dirt and don't mind if it settles later, it surprising though how they can come back to bite you. They're great for ant farms so the ants can have a good home while they're looking for your fence posts!

I know of one housing development where they did that, somebody has a cable or something put in, the backhoe comes up sometimes with a huge chunk of the yard, sidewalk, etc from the stump it is bringing to the surface.

Actually I've heard if you put them down a ways there isn't enough oxygen for them to rot so you don't have the bug or settling problem?

del

Billc · Mar 28, 2001

Thanks for the info.

RobS, I don't want to cut the trees and leave stumps. Much harder to get them out of the ground. Plus, when you leave pine stumps the tap root will eventually rot away. It leaves a 2" to 3" inch hole that's 1 to 2 feet deep. It will sure enough kill a horse. We have those types of holes all over the property from when this place was clear cut 12 yrs ago. My wife and I rode our property line yesterday on the horses, even though we've spent 2 years filling in holes we saw 6 or 7 more yesterday.

Del, we will burn off the brush. I've found roots don't burn so well. Much easier to dig a hole and cover them up. The guy I had out last year said if you bury them you can dig them up a 100 years later and they will look just the same.

I'll start calling today to get some guys out to give me some quotes.

Oh, Rich, thanks for your thread on arenas. We'll be building a 10 stall barn end of this year or first of next. I want to build an round pen with solid walls, and an arena. Why? 'Cause my wife said I wanted to, that's why.

Thanks for the info, y'all.

Bill Cook

cowboydoc · Mar 28, 2001

Bill,
When you get ready let me know and I've got alot of ideas for round pens too if you need them.

Jag · Mar 28, 2001

BillC, I feel the exact same way because my wife said so.... The timing is the same unless something comes up... Need to clear the place, eight to ten stall barn, arena and round pen.

Cowboydoc, just start the thread on round pens cause I need to know.... Oh thanks for all the good posts.

cowboydoc · Mar 28, 2001

Well IF I can force myself to build another house we may be doing the same thing. I may move up to the 113 acre parcel place. Due to a fantastic deal on some buckskin and palomino mares I'm going to start doing more breeding. What I want to do is build an 80x140 steel indoor arean with ten stalls, breeding spacae, office, and roping arena. Then build a 150x300 outdoor with an enclosed roundpen. Put paddocks off to the end of side of it, etc. That part I don't mind doing but I really don't want to build another house and after getting some bids to have one built I really don't want to do that either. So I may just build the arena and building this year and stay where I am for now. That being the case we could all three compare notes this summer!!!

Billc · Mar 29, 2001

My best friend Rich,

I think your building plans are geat! I know where there is some land RIGHT NEXT TO US!!!! What a great place to build an indoor arena! Oh, and to show you that I would have no ill feelings to you as a neighbor, I'll come over and visit your arena.......err......you about every day!

No need to thank me. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bill Cook

cowboydoc · Mar 29, 2001

Sounds great Bill!! Does that mean that I can count on you to help build it all /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif? Seriously though if I build it myself I can probably do it all for around $40,000. With these mares that I just got and what their babies have sold for the last five years I should pay for it in 2 years. That's why I'm justifying doing it, at least to the wife anyway!!!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

dmccarty · Mar 29, 2001

Del,

How much did it cost to rent the track hoe and how long did the lease last?

I thought about going this route last year before I got the tractor. One of my big concerns was learning how to run the machine. I did not want to spend thousands of dollars on a rental and spend most of my time learning how to operate the thing. After running my JD48 backhoe I think I could transition to a larger machine very easily as long as the control were the same. I did a little bit of research on the web and at the farm show and discovered that some of the newer machines have a switch that allow the controls to be set to different systems. So I figure I could rent a machine and actually get my money out of the lease if the controls are familiar.

Thanks....
Dan McCarty

Anonymous Poster · Mar 29, 2001

It was about $700 for 2 days for 16 tach hours. At my use rate it took 24 hours of use to get 16 tach hours on it. I ran it 12 hours a day. When I was sitting in my chair watching the telly I went to reach for something my hand tried to move the invisible controls on the chair to turn me sideways! The controls weren't the same but after an hour or so I was able to dig stumps and holes OK. I began reciting the movements out loud for awhile as I was going to do them then to myself and was able to get in the groove for it.

I dug up about 180 or so big stumps, dug a 330 foot ditch, heck a CANAL!, Dug 3 ponds pushed over trees had a blast. Each of the stumps was about 2 feet across, some 4 feet, with my Ford you multiply the stump diameter by about 3 and have to go out that far to be able to break the roots, the excavator had no problem right next to the stumps breaking anything off, or just scooping them out as easy as I dig up just dirt!

Rates are lower of course the longer you rent one. The yard I used and most of the independents have been bought by United Rentals, a nationwide company. They are big time, most of their equipment is under 2 years old, the excavator I rented had under 100 hours on it! The plastic was still on the seat.

Oh and back to the different methods, if you are burning it yourself later, a dozer with one of those stingers on the back (some mount on blade) can split the stump into pieces while it is in the ground, that way it will burn MUCH MUCH faster, and the pieces of even a big stump can be handled by all of our toy construction equipment!

del

scruffy · Mar 29, 2001

Saw this out on ebay...maybe along this route would be a thought:
Backhoe ~902 Liebherr~ Rubber tire Excavator
Item #574419264
Item located in: Other Vehicles:Miscellaneous
Currently $3,800.00(reserve not yet met)

Time left 5 days, 0 hour +

Started Mar-27-01 20:38:23 PST
Ends Apr-03-01 21:38:23 PDT

Seller (rating) michelletrenary@aol.com (32)
(View seller's feedback)
(View seller's other auctions)
(Ask seller a question)

High bid roadhog@planetc.com (23)

# of bids 21 (bid history)
Location Hastings, Mn
Country/Region USA/Minneapolis-St. Paul

dmccarty · Apr 2, 2001

Del,

Thanks for the info.

What was the make and model on the execavator?

Did they deliver and pickup?

Depending on the equipment I was getting quotes up to $3,000 for a large backhoe for 30 days. I never thought
about running an excavator. Now I would! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

What kind of insurance did you have? I would hate to break something and have to pay for it! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Thanks...
Dan McCarty