I have approximately 50 acres of bottom land on my farm that is covered with 20 year old thorny locust trees. They are from 6"- 12" in diameter. What is the best/most economical way for me to remove them? I have received a wide range of opinions, but would like to hear some experienced advice. I don't have a lot of topsoil, so I would prefer to disturb the ground as little as possible. I don't have a lot of money, but I have quite a bit of experience on large tractors, skidsteers, and other medium duty equipment. I would like to build a decent size pond as well, if I can get it done with the same piece of equipment. Thanks.
Have you checked into having someone come and do it in trade for the locust? I don't know what variety of locust you have, but some of it is very desirable for fencing materials because of it's resistance to rotting.
Ok, so what is the end use of the land? If its cow pasture, and you want minimal ground disturbance, I'd fell the trees with a chainsaw and flush cut the stumps. A decent sized skid steer with grapple, or skid with the farm tractor if you want to be cheap. Should be able to move the entire tree to a central point where you top the tree and remove the brush, then pile the logs for firewood or selling for pulp, or if you just don't want to deal with it, you can burn the entire thing. As chroniekon stated the wood is desirable for fence posts and other outdoor wood, and it makes a nice firewood as well. If your going to burn, pile the brush for a month or so in the summer to let it dry a little. Then dig a pit minimum 4' deep, as long as whatever your feeding into it, and pile your spoils around three sides, leaving the side you wish to feed from open. Pile your brush in the hole and light er up. If you want to speed things up go get a leaf blower, and 30' of some kinda 4" or bigger pipe and turbo charge that fire. Bigger the blower, better the result. Barn fans, anything that moves a large volume of air.
Rent a forestry mulcher, or hire someone who has one. Those things are nasty to deal with. You will need a machine with a minimum of 150HP to the mulching head. They are very hard to mulch. I did a 500 acre job that had lots of those thorny locust trees. The mulcher just spit the whole tree, minus branches, out the back end. To shred them, I had to reverse and go over them backwards with the mulcher head. Many times, they would actually stall the cutter head and jam it. A machine with around 250HP handles them better.
Why mulch saleable items? Don't get me wrong I like an ironwolf as much as the next guy, but anytime I can sell something I will. If it was a standard logging operation the landowner would receive about 1-2 dollars per ton of wood harvested if it was pulp wood, and any log negotiated. Now in a logging operation, the slash is usually left where it falls, in this case it might need to be centeralized and burned / chipped, which would affect the price of the deal, may end up costing the landowner a little, but it would be minor compared to a months rental and fuel for a mulcher. Heck if you were my neighbor I'd be right over with a little harvester, a firewood processor, and my dumptruck.
Down here, those trees are considered trash and are an undesirable species. Nobody wants to deal with all those thorns.
If they're black locust, around here they cut poles and sell for $1/foot and up, or more than $1 board foot for rough green lumber. Do you have any amish or organic farmers around?
Mowingman, would I want to spend all day limbing them with a chainsaw and dragging the brush to a small chipper, no... But I've done it. We have honey locust here in pa as well. The Ideal way to handle 50 acres of clear cut is one of these buggers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQFuzFzJ9wg I like bushy spruce less than I like honey locust. But these heads take all the manual labor out of it, leave a nice flat stump, 2" high at the most with a good operator.
I'm hoping to get it clear enough to put in some hay pasture. I've cut several trees with a chainsaw, but working by myself, I have to be very careful. The thorns are up to 8" and the limbs tend to be very low hanging. I've talked to a few woodworkers, but haven't found a good outlet for the wood. I would be interested if you know of resources for the wood.
Yair . . . nytrdr . If you want to make the paddock into a hay-field it implies it will need ploughing or at least some form of cultivation. Such requirement precludes any form of cutting/mulching as you need to push the trees to get the stumps . . . cutting trees and then grubbing stumps is pointless. I don't know much about thorny locust but I can't see they would be much problem to a 100/120 hp track loader or equivalent dozer with a tree spear. Either machine would need a set of three tine rippers with hooks in just the outer slots. I have not had much to do with track-loaders but for these horrible trees one may be the better option as you will have the lift to do a bit of pruning before getting in close to root rip . . . all this assumes of course you are allowed to burn. Such a machine would also perhaps be the best option for digging your pond and could pull off-set disks or whatever for initial working. Cheers.
Well, now the game is changing from do now disturb topsoil to I want a hay field. Now I'm not the the end all expert on clearing but I have yet to run into a locust stump that would come willingly. Especially 50 acres of them, scrub suggests a d5 size machine... If your locust are related to my locust, your going to want to double that tractor size, or at least 1/2 again. The locust I've delt with had 50' long roots that ran just under the surface and stretched like rubber bands, just cause the stump was out of the ground, didn't mean it was yours yet. As for marketing them, you need to talk to your local paper mill, they will know who is in the business of pulp harvesting. Another good spot to go is to the professional chainsaw shop. By professional I mean logger supplies, call them up, ask them if they have 11h harvester chain, if they stock it, they sell it, you need to know who buys it. If you get a "whats dat?" call the next shop. There may be whole tree chipping outfits out there making chips for biomass fuel and other uses they would more than likely leave the least mess to have to handle when you have to stump the ground. Oh, and yes scrubs is right if there is absolutely no value to sell the wood, get a trackloader and go to town. Right after God made trees he decided man should have a trackloader in case he wanted to remove a tree or two...
been doing some of this kind of work myself......#1 no rubber tired machines ...during clearing and for a couple of years later.......so that leaves you with a dozer/loader/excavator.........of those 3 it seems the track loader is the most effecient ....honey locust trees if pushed many times will break off and split even down into the ground so a trackloader with a toothed bucket to get under the tree (they are a tap root tree) to pry it out ..... i use a track loader...push the trees over a bit......then get the bucket under them and lever them out cutting the tap root if needed....then i roll the tree to knock the dirt off the roots......rake the area with the teeth on the bucket .......pile the debris let sit 30days or so then burn......then go back and level the ground ...rake again with a rock rake like you see on a tractor.....track the area in good ...plant a cover crop and wait a couple of years..... PS you got to get the roots as they will regenerate from roots ....if you dont where you had one big tree in a couple of years you will have a patch of 20 sprout trees.. PS2......you might start working with rubber tires but in many cases the thorns will take a while to work through the rubber and then deteriorate sometimes a year later you will have a tire you can not keep sealed
Not sure where Dadeville is at, but I'm about 30 miles south of Kansas City. Locust trees are a real pain to deal with, pun intended. I've cleared many acres of locust and hedge trees with a 953 and a hoe. Locust trees in the 6-12" range you should be able to heave out with a 953 pretty easy. I prefer to push them when the ground is pretty moist so the roots slide better. Like was mentioned above if you don't get the roots a locust tree will re sprout from the roots like mesquite and in two years you have one h@)) of a mess. When clearing locust trees the important part is not to force them. Bump them and if they won't roll out then take a on cut each side of the stump. If you shove on em much they will split clear down into the stump and then they are a bear to get out. You might want to consider spraying the field yearly for a couple years with something like Grazon, Crossbow, or 2-4-D because inevitably you will have some suckers that come up. As for a hoe or a loader I prefer a loader because I can push them out, pile them up, grade the hole shut and move on all with one machine. But either works well. Locust around here is worthless for anything but firewood. We have plenty of hedge (osage orange) to make posts out of, and they make a much better stronger post than any locust tree growing in Missouri. If you plan to log them and reclaim the firewood, cut the log out, stack them up for a year and by next year when you handle them with a machine most of the thorns will fall off. Good Luck John
Most companies that sell band saw mills keep a list of there customers. Check it to see if there are any close....that could be your market.