Wood chips and soil..a couple questions...

[adegiulio]

I have about 14 acres of land, most of which is choked with brush and small ugly trees. I've cleared a good amount of it, but now I have piles of small (2-6" diameter) whole trees that I dug/yanked out...I'd like to rent a chipper to easily dispose of everything and also provide me with a bunch of mulch. The questions...

1) Can I chip the root mass with the tree, provided most of the soil is off?
2) Can I chip/shred grape vines (have a LOT of those)
3) I have heavy clay soil. Can I use some of the chips as an amendment for the soil? I'm aware that the decomp of the wood robs nitrogen from the soil, is there a product I can easily till in to both aid in the decomp and help replenish nitrogen? Should I just not bother with the wood chips?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Cliff_Johns]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( 2) Can I chip/shred grape vines (have a LOT of those) )</font>

I suppose you could chop these up, but I sure wouldn't put the chopped up grape vines back down or you will have thousands more. They will grow from bits.

Cliff

 

[adegiulio]

Really?? I didn't know that!! I can see a horror movie where a guy spills some miracle-gro on a pile of chipped grape vines. VINES EVERYWHERE!!! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[RonR]

On a much smaller scale, I had a bunch of hedge branches that I'd trimmed in our place. Thinking I wanted to be green, I rented a medium sized chipper. My goal: Chip the limbs for compost easily and efficiently. Reality: a small pile of chips, but I had to saw and saw and saw; the limbs were so twisty, they wouldn't feed in the chipper chute! Last time I tried that.

Our city has a treecycle place where you can haul limbs FREE and haul out chips FREE.

Now I wouldn't want to do that with 14 acres of stuff, but for a city guy, it's golden.

If grapes do come back, and I doubt you'd want to sort them out, I think I'd pile and burn it all and figure out something else to do for soil additives.

If you do decide to chip, I'd hire a BIG RIG that would eat trees in one loading, otherwise, I think it would take you a long time.

To topdress our yard this year, I bought 6,000# of composted zoo poop. A commercial operation near us composts it with wood and leaves. It's the best stuff I've ever seen for the clay soil we have. No smell, well composted, and not that expensive. Think it was $20 a yard if I hauled it. Our yard looks GREAT. Even feels more spongy walking across it. And our grass is SO GREEN.

Best wishes,
Ron

 

[adegiulio]

What did that cost you for the 6000 pounds? How much land did that cover?
POOP!!

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Ron, how did you topdress the yard? Manure spreader? Shovel? I've often thought of doing that to improve my yard, as it is pretty much a reclaimed pasture over hard clay. But I never could figure out how to do the top dressing without way more manual labor than I cared to do. Now if there is a mechanical way to do it, I'd love to know.

 

[RonR]

Boy this thread is hijacked---now talking about zoo doo!

I have a 3500 # single axle trailer, so I drove it out there 3 times over 3 Saturdays for the stuff. A yard was about 1800# or (according to them), and I always made sure it was DRY before I went out. Didn't want to mess with muddy stuff. I needed to tarp it also, since it was light and fluffy.

Load one was heaping, probably 2 yards. #2 & #3 were closer to one yard.

Wife and I spread it by hand over an established fescue lawn in front and over one that needed overseeding in back. Just moved the trailer close to the front and tossed it out with shovels. It was really easy to just spread it out as it was much lighter than dirt or sand. Just toss and toss and toss. We used a leaf rake on it, but that wasn't very effective to work it in. If I had a core aerator, I think that would have been nice to use prior to spreading the stuff.

My guess is we had it 1-2" deep over an 80x120' lot (minus buildings, drive, and shed.)

We watered it a lot and it looked crappy (sorry, pun) for a few weeks, but then we verticut and overseeded in the fall. After that, you could barely see where it was.

The ground feels much softer now walking across it. And the new seeds have turned into LUSH lawn.

This outfit has a huge truck that can blow the mixture (including seed if you wish) across your lawn. You just tell them how deep you want it. It sounded pretty pricey to me, but I'm sure it's cheaper than sod.

My guess is if you search for wood recyclers in your area, you might find similar.

 

[Glenn9643]

Don't know what type of chipper/shredder you have access to, but I use an old Tomahawk/Troybilt that has 4" chipper capacity I think. As stated earlier, some of them require a lot of saw work to get the pieces to where they'll fit in the chute for chipping. You'd definitely be better off to rent a large chipper that would take the whole thing, or at least large portions.
As for the question about using the chips to amend the soil, it would work much better if you compost the chips first. If "greens" (high-nitrogen items such as grass clippings, kitchen waste, etc.) aren't available to mix with the wood chips you can just mix in some commercial nitrogen fertilizer with the chip pile and keep it damp. Addition of organic matter (compost) is the best thing you can do to improve clay soil. If you decide to just till the chips into the soil you could probably help with the N deficiency by adding some commercial fertilizer, but I'd have no idea how much would be required.

 

[RonR]

A pull type manure spreader would have spread this stuff nicely, but I didn't have one, they are VERY expensive new, and I would have had trouble spreading it eveningly and getting around the house, drive, shed, and deck.

I did use the FEL a couple of times to dump small piles to spread with a rake, but my trailer was not easy to unload from. About all I could do easily was take a bucketfull or two off the top of the load. Raking it out was actually more hassle than just tossing a shovelful at a time.

I also tried hard not to create much dust--didn't want to breath that in!

And I needed the exercise.....................

Take Care,
Ron, zoo doo man!

 

[Darren]

Compost the stuff first. I'd pile all the chips in one place and use lawn clippings mixed with the chips to create another pile nearby. Obviously the smaller the chips the faster they will decompose. In most suburban areas some of the lawn care services haul truck loads of clippings away. That would be primo stuff to make a hot pile.

The only thing better would be sewage sludge but you'd need a special permit to use the stuff and in NJ it would probably have a high metals content. If you can find a facility that composts clippings and trimmings using a kiln like setup, that would be great stuff for top dressing. Keep in mind that clippings could bring in high levels of toxic materials depending on what some of the homeowners may have used.