Yair . . . In the US there seems to be growing use of flails and heavy duty rotary mowers for clearing ROW and so on . . . what's the go, don't those Northern Hemisphere timber/brush species sucker? You couldn't use such equipment here . . . or rather you could and it would look good for a fortnight and then the regrowth would come up like a wheat field and grow at about six inches or more per week! Any comments fellers? Cheers
Well scrub, let me ask you this, if you don't mulch or chew it down, what else do you do iwith it? Watch it grow, leave it alone, what? In most of the areas that are mowed off or ground off so to speak, its illegal to burn the stuff, nobody in their right mind would ever take it or steal it, piled up garbage trees are unsightly and nobody wants them so what's the alternative? To help you out somewhat, I'll say what nobody wants to say, its out of neglect and mismanagement there is a problem at all, the stuff has been allowed to grow in the first place, so to mow or grind it off is about the only thing left that one can do get the brush and garbage trees back under control. There is something we can do here to eliminate those regrowth problems, its called chemicals. After its ground down, all the stubble can be sprayed and it won't regrow, but most times this isn't done either, as they say what makes sense and is common sense to do isn't exactly what's done all the time, you have to remember most of the area's affected are not in private owned hands, but more public hands, managed by those who worry more about costs, public opinion and a host of other things the private landlower could care less about, let alone have it affect our actions or opinions of keeping our stuff looking nice and under control.. But to answer your question, depending on the species being mowed or ground off, it can come back with a vengence or not at all, can take decades to grow back or be six feet tall in months. I have no idea what species of things grow in your country, and depending on where in the states your at, each area has things that grow in each area due to climate and yearly temps and rainfall, but in my area we deal with elm trees, that die off when they get about a foot in diameter or less, willow trees, sumac and of course boxelders, can't forget those, to the tune of an uncountable number each year, has to be in the trillions that are the most worthless tree the good lord put on this earth that take over everything in a few years. Not sure if that answered your question or not, but it keeps people busy and equipment in use to get things back under control and looking nice again.
We mostly see them used on power line & pipe line easements.Like Randy mentioned there are allot of different ways to deal with trees & undergrowth. www.asplundh.com/services_specialized_equipment.htm . Asplundh also works in Australia Scrub Puller www.asplundh.com.au
Yair . . . Gotcha fellers . . . that 'illegal to burn' says it all and in truth that mindset is starting to come in over here. Jobs that would have taken just days with a couple of D7's with pushers, rakes and chain now take months with excavators and munching heads . . . I find it quite amusing to see all the trees cut off with a chainsaw the trees fed into a chipper . . . and then they spend weeks digging out the stumps. The weird part is the wood chip is spread six inches deep or even left in piles and burns in the next scrub fire anyway. . . but as you say it keeps equipment working . . . we all pay for it in our taxes is the problem. Cheers
Scrub.... The idea of using flail/muching mowers is to cut the top off and leave the stumps & foliage in the ground.Once again I'm using the power line & pipe line rite-of-way example. If you took all the foliage & stumps off with dozers you would end up with a big soil erosion problem. www.asplundh.com/library/Mowers.pdf