I've done a fair amount of tree clearing on the farm. Fence rows, Osage, cedar etc. I need to start clear some heavier timber and was wondering what your techniques are. This is in hilly southern Iowa in a "pasture" that's been neglected for about 40 years. With a few exceptions it's about equal parts eastern red cedar, honey locust, and osage orange. Right now all I have is a D6c with brush screens around the rops. I'm looking for an excavator but I may not be able to find one for this project. Had one guy tell me he pushes trees up in windrows. Presumably that means pushing them into rows from either side. What's your method?
you need to expand on your job a little bit. are you planning to burn them? is there anything marketable? are you trying to get clear back to pasture?
Clearing in order to reclaim the pasture. With the exception of some of the osage being cut for fence posts, it will be burned. Other trees like oak will be left but that's only a few.
Some time ago I ran across a Vietnam era US Army publication that went into detail about the techniques used to clear an area, but I can't seem to find it again.
View attachment 246000 I recently completed another 300 or so acres of tree and brush clearing. It was similar to what you are clearing, including those good old honey locusts. You really need a medium sized excavator to dig those out, (we rented a JD 130G), View attachment 246000 that way you get a lot of the roots and the crap will not grow back so thickly. As we dug the trees up, we used a CTL with a root grapple on most of the stuff. If it got too thick, or too large of a diameter, we used a D6T to pile up the trees and brush. Using just a dozer as you mentioned, is going to be slow, and will leave way too many roots that will regrow.
Forgot to mention in my original post as I was thinking of just the bigger trees. I do ha a Kubota SVL95 CTL with a tree puller and grapple rake. The puller works well on smaller trees without disturbing much soil. The grapple works good for final cleanup. I have a root rake for the D6 but it hasn't been as handy as I thought it would be.
For me it was once a Bush Hog, that's what I could afford. Beat the bejesus out of it, but got the job done. Tractor: $1100.00 Hog: $ 350.00 Repair parts $10,000.00 These days my options have grown. I begin with a small dozer, clear a path to each big tree. I then, (depending on size) push it over with backhoe, or dig out roots first, then push over with backhoe. A tree trunk is a big lever amplifying the power of the hoe. I cut fire wood, occasionally a saw log or two. Then, the dozer smoothes it out, pushes the stump to the stump dump. Here, it is near impossible to get stumps dry enough to burn. A pile off a steep hill takes a long time to rot, but so what?
When my dad was alive there were no hydraulic excavators and nearly all clearing was done with a dozer. The usual method was to back into the woods and push brush to the outside or push to a central point in the woods and circle the new pile by again backing into the woods and pushing the edges to the pile. My dad modified that somewhat with his shovel and clamshell bucket. The dozer pushed the stuff to the outside line of the woods and dad built piles up to forty or so feet high which would be burned. Dad would light off the fire and every morning he or the dozer would push the stuff on the outside of the fire perimeter back to the center and it would burn some more. They worked as a team clearing the land. Today everyone around here has gone almost completely to excavators with thumbs and maybe one dozer working with two or three excavators. People were charging between $1,500 and $2,500 and acre last I heard. The older guys got where they wouldn't answer the phone for that kind of money.
If you have a grapple for the little stuff, then I'd cut the big ones and leave the stumps. Low if you want to be able to spray the pasture, or high if you think you might come back and push the stumps out. Another option would be to pile around the stumps or standing trees you want gone, and burn the pile. It won't remove the stump, but I bet they don't come back. If they do come back, that's what herbicide is for. I can't see spending the money to clear it like it's going to be a housing development for cows. Pull the cedars and locust to burn. Cut the bigger stuff for posts or firewood and burn or just pile the rest. Come back every other year with herbicide to finish of the stragglers.
I’ve been using an Echo CS-490 and Pickup 87 to clear my remote cabin site. Not very efficient. Don’t recommend it. Drinking brown liquor at the burn pile is kinda fun. Gaze North tomorrow and you might see the glow. That’s not the Northern Lights, it’s my stump pile of beetle kill spruce. Not like the nice Forum Member on the other side of the Big Susitna River flying track type tractors around to clear his place. Nope. I can hardly afford gasoline for PU87.
In quite a bit of it the trees are very close together. Many too close to back in between to push them out. I don't really want to leave all those stumps because it makes it impossible to do any tillage for reseeding.....nor do I want to do all the hand work to chainsaw literally thousands of trees. I did manage to push a dozer blade width along the boundary fence to make it possible to get in and do fence repair. I just side cast the trees in among the standing trees where I could find an opening. It was so thick I had trouble seeing the fence in places.
Another stump removal method I used for years was a winch. I'd use an extension ladder to chain a snatch block high in a tree. Cable was passed through the snatch block. The end was attached to a stout tree. Truck was attached to another stout tree. 20' of tree trunk makes a Hell of a lever. Only the biggest trees resist. My winch is a Garwood 16Y. I don't know its rating, but it breaks 5/8 steel cable.
I think I might have seen the same army manual you were talking about, but they had rome plow spear blades that were sharpened to cut the trees off at the same time they split the stump. and they didn't care what it cost either. I can't remember one pattern, you'd just figure what works. Windrows are as good as any pattern, just need to find the right width, an how much effort to put into piling. It will make a mess, and be marginally economical for grazing land.
Excavator and thumb, crawler loader to give more leverage higher up on the tree, if you don't have an excavator, see if you can rent one somewhere. Titan rentals sometimes rents them out with a mechanical thumb, I'd avoid a hydraulic thumb myself, not tough enough for larger timber.
Excavator with thumb would be ideal. That's what my brother has but not something I want to borrow/rent from him. If something is going get damaged it will be on borrowed equipment. His has a hyd thumb and works well.
Digging out stumps I'd manage without a thumb, especially if you have a dozer. To dig out a stump, rip roots enough to pull, then push the stump. Never comes first try. Have you heard of a tree spear? I think of Australia & all the land clearing they did there. Several designs, but an extension on your dozer blade to push up on the trunk of a tree. I'd say 10' above ground it grips the trunk & pushes & lifts.
Rent a 200+ sized excavator with thumb and put a guy on it. he yanks and stacks the piles, you are raking roots out and what you can handle. March through and get it in those windrows and try to line them up so they run with the wind direction when you have good burning weather. The wind blowing along the windrow works great, and one does not block the next one from good circulation that way. Get rid of hoe and let dry out all summer. Light the piles when you have enough wind and even a little rain in the following fall. Get excavator back to tend the fires down to nothing. I have burned with a 6, but a thumb does wonders to get all the little nubs and bits burned up cleaner.
Since you already have a D6 you might want to look at a Rome cutter blade. Here are a couple - https://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/search?Category=459&Manufacturer=ROME&ScopeCategoryIDs=81 Use the Rome blade on the smaller stuff then stack the brush and take the larger trees out with your SU blade. It will be a slight PIA to change blades out so plan your work areas accordingly. Stack the debris in windrows towards the center of the property away from your fence line and burn what you can manage at one time. The windrows will allow you to burn more efficiently than a huge round pile. Windrows provide more surface area for oxygen to reach the fire and you can push a windrow up easier than a huge round pile.
Windrows sound like a good plan. Anyone ever had the NRCS give you trouble about dozing trees to reclaim pasture. I had one guy tell me they don't want you dozing out stumps on HEL ground (highly erodeable land). Most likely better not to ask. They're first response is usually no to anything you want to do.
Personally, I like to clear out the small stuff first. Once that's gone, I have room to drop the progressively larger stuff without being hung up and wasting time. I normally leave a safety barrier if I want to control flying discharge and take that stuff out last. My finish cuts are done last after material has had some time to dry - even 30 minutes can make a difference. Finish work is always cut down low enough to allow maintenance bush hogging and driving over with vehicles. I've been driving over my jobsites with my trucks for over 24 years with no flats from chips to date. I reclaim a lot of property to put it back to pasture or make initial pasture after logging work. No need to get rid of chips or even till the ground with my methods. I have one cattle farmer that usually has enough grass coming up within 2 months after I finish my work that he sets his cattle out on that new to-be pasture ground. I had a customer ask what things looked like after a couple of years after I did my work. Here is a series of pics from what the loggers left me, what I processed it to and what it looks like earlier this year. This is on some land that is cut with a bush hog 2-3 times per year. I doubt they even cast down any grass seed on this. Everything you see was processed to chips. No stumps were removed from the ground. Here is another job earlier this year. Customer had timber cut several years ago so lots of stump sprouts and standing dead stumps to deal with. He wants pasture for cattle. Maybe I can get back down there in the next few months to add in how things are going.
Mulchers are amazing. That’s awesome.
Looks nice. All that mulch would be good cover until the grass gets going. Unless you're removing stumps I'd have a lot of regrowth from osage and locust.
Spot spray with proper herbicides to kill off stumps once the sprouts come up. Crossbow will kill woody species without killing grasses. Win-win.
I like to paint it on some stuff that's imbedded in other woody plants that I want to keep.
Push them all over with the blade. Then a stickrake to rake them up.
Depending on the rain fall in your area use treemunchers method but with a slight difference. Get the mulcher to rough cut an area then throw seed onto it , then get the mulcher to do the finish cut. That way the seed is mixed into the mulch and a little top soil. With a few days of steady rain you'll be grazing stock in about 3 months. The other benefits, no erosion and another layer of good soil. The stumps stay and won't rot down and are not any problem in pastoral areas, cultivated areas different story. The above method I used when I was in business doing this type of work and never had an unhappy customer
Iam with .RC. There would be countless thousands of acres around the world that have been developed with 10K D6s. Would be good to see some photos of the timber you are dealing with.
I encourage my customers to just throw seed down right on top of the mulch and let it percolate down. Seems to work just fine. Also, native grasses come up easily as well. I always try to leave any grass root base intact and it will recover within days of the next rain. Most important thing is to keep the work area bush hogged about 3x year to kill off stump sprouts and large weeds. This will cause the grasses to re-establish and thicken up. Our weather is naturally wet here so trees and grasses grow fast.
It all gets down to overall costs, fire is the cheapest, mulching is the highest price, especially when you figure in chemical costs over the next few years, done it about ever way clearing can be done. The only place we mulch or grind anything anymore is where burning is banned, otherwise we burn everything. If you have anyone nearby with a feller buncher, its not been mentioned yet, but you can clear cut everything, then shove it all into piles [with your D6 if you have a brush rake on it] and burn the bulk of the woody material and not have to deal with the stumps, then chemicals can take care of regrowth later on, still much cheaper than mulching everything. We've done this a few times on smaller parcels where we were close to rock and the owner didn't want things grubbed and didn't want to deal with the mulch. That way you have instant grass. We've even done this method, then stump ground the stumps level or slightly below the ground [maybe 6 inches] then the owner came back and filled the larger stump holes in with dirt to level everything off so he had a nice level grassed area. Not something I'd recommend unless you have a lot of time on your hands and nothing better to do, but thought I'd mention it just the same. As they say some retired guys like this method, it gives them something to do and basically gets them out of the wife's way for a while and out of the house. We've also ground off the tree's and instead of mulching them up, we've shoved them into piles and just burned the tops to save a huge amount of the costs of mulching everything, that way the stumps are ground level, but it still requires chemicals to keep the regrowth at bay, [many don't like to have to spray their pastures or non farming ground] but we've done this before too. This method works best for brush type stuff, like chemically killed off willows. Then shove the brush into piles and burn them up. I don't know if you have any willow trees anywhere in this mix, but if you do, those we chemically kill before we do anything, by grinding or mulching, every single piece will regrow with a willow once it rains and will for years afterwards. I'd doubt you have willows to deal with unless you near a creek or stream, southern Iowa isn't really plentiful with them like most of the rest of Iowa, but thought I should mention it just the same.
To avoid regrowth, my brother has gone to killing osage with Remedy before pulling them out with an excavator. You mix it with diesel fuel and spray the bark around the base of the tree. Works pretty well if you don't have hundreds to do. I may use it on large honeylocust that can't easily be reached on ditch banks.
Agreed if the stumps have to be dealt with for row cropping, then yes, Slash & Burn is generally the cheapest method. Especially if it is a do-it-yourself job with lots of available time and very little funding available. Turning logged off terrain into pasture will likely be cheapest if mulched, provided you are using suitably sized mulching equipment. If a logger clear cuts and chips the tops/slash, then mulching is much faster and cheaper than stump removal. Mulchers rated for 16", 20" or larger are productive and efficient machines. Anything less is too small to be cost competitive unless it's in extreme conditions. Lots of variables on any job. Size, species, density, terrain and finish quality. If mulching was not competitively priced to Slash & Burn, I would have been out of business well over 20 years ago and still doing it with a hoe, a match and a fan. Lots of times, I can mulch it faster and cheaper than Slash & Burn. Time is money. That's why I sub for a lot of other contractors. Every method has its place but not every dog is ready for a new trick. When I did S&B with a dozer, the pin on brush rake sped up my clearing time and kept fires cleaner. Still the same basic method - clean out the small stuff first so that the big stuff does not get hung up and you have an open path to push within. With a hoe, a demolition rake & thumb beats a bucket and burn in a pit to keep the job cleaner. A fan will provide more needed oxygen and get the job burned down much faster. Cribbing up a fire pile about 6-10 feet tall at the base prior to lighting off will produce a naturally aspirated inferno with the cleanest and hottest burn properties. Those burn insanely fast and hot.
Hey Treemuncher, what exactly do you mean by "cribbing up?"
Cribbing as in shoring and stabilization structure . I build it out of logs that I will burn anyways and with logs as large a diameter as possible. I run a PC200 with a clearing rake and matching hydraulic thumb so I can reach about 25'+ high to stack my piles if I do S&B. Build a structure that looks like this, but shorter, with logs to an elevation of 5'-10' at the top row. What matters is that you have room for air flow into the base of the pile. Ignore the dimensions of cut timbers as shown in the definition drawing. Just build it out of scrap logs as long and wide as you have the materials for and 5'-10' tall. You can build a crib over a dug pit with air inlets dug out at the 4 sides for best air flow. A dug pit will also retain your ashes for easy clean up. Load your brush pile on top of the cribbing structure as high as you can reach it. Preferably set the dryest material towards the bottom or middle. I prefer a small diesel Molotov cocktail as a starter if the material is good and dry. Heave it in midway and the diesel will leak down through the pile and things will start quickly. A pump up sprayer with diesel is also a great starter, especially mixed into the airstream of a leaf blower. Oxygen is the most important ingredient to get it going good and nothing beats fast air flow over a trickle of diesel for cost effectiveness. Cool, dense air will be entrained through the slats of the crib and feed up into the brush pile laid above the cribbing. Rising heat will create a vacuum below and feed the oxygen faster and burn the material faster as well as cleaner. Once things start burning down enough to refuel, grab a wad and place it on top of the burning pile. Keep the burn refueled at the top of the structure and the cribbing will last quite a while as cool air feeds into the bottom and 100'+ flames incinerate everything above. When I tried this method, the fire was so hot and so extreme that I had to keep the excavator door closed due to the radiant heat. My material had 1-2 days drying time after it hit the ground. Once my cocktail started, 15 seconds later and there was no chance to put it out unless I had a fire hose. As fast as I could grab, track and stuff a wad on top of the pile, it was burning full bore as soon as I could repeat the process. I burned the majority of 2+ acres of heavy scrap wood, tops and some mulching chips from 2 PM-7PM that day. NOT the type of fire you want in a residential setting!
When I burned piles on the freeway job, I found out what was the weakest link. Some think it is the radiant heat on your face, the backs of your hands on the sticks. No. It is your nipples. That was what made me turn away first I had a really rattly loose 225, the dozer guy built the piles ahead of me with an 8K with a brush rake. It was on the highway 3 widening out towards Poulsbo.
Thank you for a great explanation. I'm in Vermont. I'd bet we log more hours of rain than anywhere else on the planet. Weather Channel predicts a sunny day today today. Mrs. B just returned from Rutland, it rained part way. Trash wood won't willingly burn. I brought a couple loads of pine home, cut & split it fine. Gotta wait for dry weather to break up a boulder. In the old days I used tires. At least three tires stacked, first was filled with gasoline, second with diesel, third with old engine oil. Build the pile on them.
Willie, That made me laugh! I grew up in MA and spent plenty of time in VT. New England does not know what a heavy rain is except when a hurricane rolls through. You ain't seen rain till you move to the South! Winter months can be 30 days of rain without sun. About 50" per year is normal for me here. I had 8.8" hit in one day last month and nearly 95% of that hit within a 6 hour window. That turned into 14"-20" for those poor people down in Waverly. It's not the PNW, but it's wet and always humid. Here's how to build a good fire starter/burner unit. I only like to burn on rainy days for safety reasons and this will get ANYTHING combustible to burn, even in the pouring rain. It's basically an oil furnace burner unit stepped up in size. Atomize the fuel and provide lots and lots of oxygen : Get some 1/2" or 3/4" black iron pipe lengths. Longer is better as this will be shoved into the burn pile. Get some steel ag spray tips or pressure washer tips with a wide fan spray pattern (25 to 40 degrees) and related fittings to thread the spray tips to the end of the black pipe. 12 volt fuel pump rated at 50 psi or higher, 1 gpm or higher and a 12 volt battery hose clamps, misc fittings and enough fuel hose to keep a distance - maybe 20 feet or more One end of the black pipe will be the fuel inlet. Plumb accordingly to your fuel hose size and connect fuel hose to inlet end. Other end of pipe is your sprayer tip that should produce a misting fan spray of diesel when under pressure. Leave a good length of hose to get from the inlet of the black pipe to your fuel reservoir - I use a plastic 5 gallon oil pail. Pipe in the fuel pump on top of the pail with the outlet going to the inlet of the spray wand. Don't forget a cheap filter (G-2 inline) before the inlet of the pump. My system will run close to 30 minutes with a 5 gallon pail of diesel. You can pre-soak a rag with diesel, tie it to the tip of the wand, light it and then shove it into the heart of the pile. Kick on the fuel pump and get the party started. Now, using a backpack leaf blower, or my choice, the almighty T-VAC that has been converted to a pto blower for my tractor for the best possible blow job, and blow lots of air to that flame. Direct that airflow to the flame and get your weenies ready for crispification. Sometimes I use a trench or a metal culvert to direct my airflow to the base of the fire pile. The beauty of the wand is that you can move the fuel/flame about to get the fire burning best where you can get the air to the fuel. Once the fire is rocking, keep the air flow going and you can withdraw your wand. It won't matter how wet it is, things will be burning along nicely once initiated properly and fed lots of air.
Last effort to burn on "The Land" was a number of BIG dead pines gathered up, lots of brush from other projects, some old lumber piled too long. As luck would have it, we need to schedule ahead of time for a fire permit, it rained. Ten gallons of diesel, a leaf blower, nothing worked. A more recent effort here at home, Andy, (an extra son) had hauled several loads of pine 4' chunks to "the land". I went down, got two loads, about 6 yards each. I cut them 24" & split them fine. Yes, it burned well, I destroyed a monster rock I hadn't been able to lift. A second 12 foot long boulder I wasn't able to fully expose. My goal is to break it enough to be below grade, or enough to move. First fire weakened it with some breakage. I got the backhoe home today, next opportunity I'll clean out, work from the other side. I've got a cord of split pine left to fuel. You planted a seed of thought, I have a barrel of old engine oil for free fuel to supplement. I think I'll use compressed air to make a sprayer.
Honey Locust will need the Remedy and or Tordon to shut the root structure down or will have MILLIONS of saplings next spring. Renters home spun concoction is mix pint pint pint of 2-4-D, Crossbow and Tordon in recommended water base, spray ALL green and in growing phase vegetation, make certain ALL leaves are treated, root structure will succumb. Commercially is called Pasture Clear.
All good ideas and thanks. Here's what's worked well for me. I'll dig a trench maybe 8-10 feet wide, about 8' deep, and usually 25-30 feet long or so. At one end I'll slope the end at about a 45 degree angle. I put the fan on this sloped end so that it's pointing down into the trench. Start fire in trench and turn on fan once it's beginning to burn. This gets really hot inside the trench. The bigger the fan you have the faster it will burn. I've used a 4' shop fan with good results. My current fan is something left over from smoke evacuation on a restaurant. It's fairly big but not like treemuncher's beast.
If there are just a handful of large trees then I try to make my piles as close to them as possible. That usually cuts down on the mess quite a bit.
Pionjar rock hammer (or Chinese YN27 on Ebay) and non explosive blasting grout. I cut out a nice fire pit in granite ledge at the camp in Maine with that stuff. Easy to shear off 10"-12" thick slabs with that method. Drill 1.5" holes in suggested pattern, mix grout with water, pour into holes and wait 6-12 hrs and everything is split with nearly 20,000 psi pressure on the rock. The grout is relatively cheap and fairly safe to handle.
Maybe I'll explore that. I find these rocks are hard! A rotary hammer ruins a bit fast.
I don't know if he's used it yet but my brother made a fan out of an old silage blower.
I try to keep piles close to where I'm clearing but have found that it's better to put them either on top of a hill or down on low flat areas. Erosion is a big problem here and a burning a pile on a side hill can start a washout that can be difficult to get fixed.
I do my clearing with a loader. Usually clear all the small stuff and clean up then take big trees out. We like to burn as we go, you can keep bunching pile and almost have a complete burn. I have a 200 excavator to dig stumps and usually get them out and dig the hole a few feet deeper then roll the stump in upside down and bury it. With the hedge you should be able to really burn the piles. I've seen pile of them burn to nothing but ashes. Try and watch the amount of dirt you get pushing up piles. Dozers are terrible about putting as much dirt as trees in a pile. With the loader I roll the bunches before I get to the pile to get most of the dirt out of them. Those hedge are terrible to push sometimes they are so wooly.
To help start a fire and keep it burning, tires are illegal, but in my state its legal to burn waste oil or any type of fuel in order to get the material to burn, its not allowed to basically use the material as a reason to burn the fuel. We've used about everything there is to get fires going, most of what we've used was given to me, as in vandalized vehicles and equipment fuel that was contaminated with something and nobody would take it, at one time we had a couple thousand gallons of waste junk to burn up and get rid of, most of the diesel was contaminated with acid and the gasoline with water or some chemicals, the waste oil, I really have no idea what was in it but the thing I've learned is this, if its free, you really don't want it. We've only used a 20lb lp tank and weed burner for decades now, one 20 lb tank will enough to burn 20 acres of green live timber, maybe even more if the weather cooperates. I usually tell people we're going to burn, if there is something you'd like to get rid of and doesn't contain steel or nails, bring it out and toss it on, after all its your fire use it to get rid of the stuff you don't want laying around, beyond that it really doesn't take much to get and keep a fire going. Dry dead material any idiot can burn, live green or water logged material needs to be handled, prepped and burned in a far different method than dry, different species of tree's need a different approach in order to get to burn, green willows four feet in diameter takes a far different approach than a foot diameter green oak tree or cedar, same goes for brush or anything else, humidity, wind speed, temps all play a huge role as well, along with the time of year, in the dead of winter when the tree's are drier, is much easier than the spring time when the sap is heading up into the tree and literally making the tree's wetter. Blowers and things might be needed in some areas and under some conditions to get stuff to burn, in my area I've never used or needed them, I personally think they are a waste of time and money, other areas and different conditions if I lived there, I might feel differently and use them. I know people around me use blowers, have for years and still get marginal results in burning green material. I've burned green stuff every day while it was raining if the mud wasn't too bad to deal with and no issues whatever getting all the stuff burned up. It gets down to experience, what your dealing with and the conditions your doing it in and how much is wanting to be spent to get the job done and the equipment you have to do it with. Every job is different, each takes a different approach to get the wanted end result, there is no such thing as a one size fits all, never has been never will be and 20 different people will do the exact same job 20 different ways to get it done, doesn't make one right and the other 19 wrong, as they say to each his own and if the job gets done to the person doing the hiring satisfaction, then it was done correctly.
That 12' rock I had partially buried, I used an old half sheet of 1/4" plate as a fire back. Between it & the rock I placed 1/8 cord of cut & split white pine. Pine was wet, so I doused it with old gas drained from old tractors. First fire I got some breakage, but not what I hoped. Next burn, I placed the sheet steel other side of the rock. More breakage, but still not what I hoped. Third fire was the charm! It broke an end off the rock, maybe 1/3 total volume. I was then able to move it a bit & it started coming apart in big chunks. Roughly 11 tons total. I couldn't carry all the pieces in one load with my truck. About 1/2 cord of wood, 5 gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of OLD home heating oil with water in it.
It's a lot easier to burn piles if the big trees are logged out. Most are oak with a mix of elms, maples and a few others. We've just found you have to keep pushing them up tight to keep them hot. I just dug a lake that was had lots of big random rocks in it. The biggest I loaded on a trailer for a friend to put at his driveway. It was 10.5 tons on the scales. 973 handled it fairly easy and we pulled it off rolling on pipes with a 6h.
The glow on the Northern horizon tonight is me. Pay no attention. Everything is under control. Black spruce is like a torch.
The problem with logging out the larger logs is nobody wants them, if loggers won't take them because they won't even make RR ties, you can't give them away in the scale and volume needed to keep ahead of what we burn on a regular basis. When everyone else has picked over and removed what they want, as in loggers, wood cutters and everyone else, all the rest gets put in piles and burned. By the way if anyone ever finds a use for box elder or willow let me know, I'd gladly give them a few million trees every year, for free, they'd even come with a volume discount, when you get into the billions, LOL. As for setting up a business selling cut and split firewood, we've thought about that, the pay is much better to be paid to burn the stuff in piles verses the expense and headaches of dealing with the firewood business, that and nobody wants to pay for boxelder cut split and delivered. As for the all the rest of the larger species, those cottonwoods, willow, burr oak, that get up and larger than five feet in diameter, those are mostly rotten and hollow at that point and only belong in a fire or contain enough metal from fence posts, staples or wire once burned someone could sell scrap metal from the ashes if they had enough time and interest to do so.
Amish saw mills are begging for pallet logs and railroad tie logs. Just logged my farm and everything is as high as the logger has seen it. Loads of stave white oak logs brought more than he has ever sold loads for. Pallet is anything that will make a board almost. The last great big lake we did that was around 18 acres the logging more than paid for all the brush removal. Same for a pasture we cleared last year. We've got a 30 to 40 acre lake in the works that has that much brush, we'll see how that one works out.
There aren't many loggers where I am in southern Iowa and they seem only to want walnut or oak. I did talk to one about logging my ash that is beginning to die....too many for me to saw into lumber. He was only offering about $20 per tree. The only thing I have that might be of interest to Amish pallet sawmills is some honey locust but I don't like spreading the thorns all over the pasture logging them out. (Hard on cattle hooves) Cottonwood is possible but I'd rather leave them standing.
If you have ash, and its only starting to die, get rid of it now for whatever price you can get. The ash bore went through years ago now, maybe six-seven years back, those ash trees are only worth logging for the first year or two, after that nobody wants them and you don't either, they rot fast and are really dangerous to clear or grub after about 4-5 years due to being so rotten. We're clearing off dead ash right now on a five acre timber that the owner just purchased this summer, they are so dangerous he wants them all taken down so he can even safely walk around his newly purchased timber and reseed some nicer quality trees where these all stood. We finally ended up cutting them off with a feller buncher because they are far too dangerous to even drive dozers around, just the ground shaking will bring them down all around you as you track through the timber. They are impossible to grub safely with an excavator, if you even attempt to push the tree over, the top comes back onto the excavator even with a gentle nudge. Anything you can turn into cash and eliminate a later liability hazard is well worth it from what I've seen and the tens of thousands of dead ash I've already removed.
Nothing worse than pushing a bunch of dead trees. Seems no matter how gentle you walk up to them the top wants to fold over on you. Tree pushing is one of the more dangerous jobs in the construction world. I've had logs come threw the side doors, big limbs come out of it seems no where and hit your arms and hands. An eye opening experience when a big limb jumping over the bucket and stopping a foot in front of your face when it comes threw the windshield. I used to be kind of wild at it but these days I'll pick a couple three trees out at a time and take them to the pile. Randy's right sell everything you can if you are clearing it all, stumps suck but so does a stump on a big tree. At least you can sort the stumps out separate instead of digging them out of a burnt pile.
Just looked at a ravine a few days ago, what a mess, the owner didn't want the box elders so he went in and killed them years ago with chemicals, so they all stand there dead, then the ash bore came through and killed every ash tree in the ravine. Now ever single tree is dead and falling over, more with every wind storm that comes along and he's given up trying to combine along it, as he drives by the vibration drops trees ahead and behind him and a few too close for comfort so now its been decided to clear them all out.......citing safety reasons. Nice theory, not yet sure how to remove 500 plus dead tree's too dangerous to even walk around, let alone run machinery around............... The ironic part of the whole deal is this, his wife is beyond upset, feeling they are too dangerous to be around and won't let him go near them at all, his kids are upset and think the whole situation is a death trap ready to kill anyone who gets too close [kind of agree with them on that issue] and now the insurance company is stating the dead tree's are a liability issue and need to be removed or they might cancel his liability insurance on all his property [so far only verbal threats, nothing stated in writing] in attempts to get them all gone. So I need to provide proof of insurance and sign a waiver to even do the job. Now I'm pretty sure everyone else turned this guy down and was thinking along those lines myself, when it was brought to my attention, anyone can buy their own personal flame thrower, that can shoot flames up to 100 feet, that is legal. Now I honestly never thought I'd have a legitimate reason to ever own a flame thrower, let alone be considered a business tool and might even be tax deductible, let alone ever really want one before, but at this point in life, why not, I've burned standing dead tree's before that were too dangerous to get close to, granted not 500 at a time. But it does spark my curiosity somewhat, so the next stop is to speak with the fire chief and find out just how radical a person can get and still be considered legal and within the law.........and also what fines and penalties are if operating outside the law.
Dead trees with a top or big branches likely to break I'd rather pull down than saw or dozer blade. Some are so scary I use a stepladder to hook the snatch block. A tree trunk is a Hell of a lever. A few years back I pushed down a 90' tall pine. It was dead & I knew it was likely to break. I convinced myself it'd fall the other way. Besides, I had a ROPS I'd be alright. About 4' Of 8" diameter tree trunk landed on my air intake 2' from me. I decided not to do that any more.
Maybe an excavator with very long reach like they use to demo old buildings?
you can sit back far enough with a 300~400. I dig the near side till I cut that root, then push it away. Never got close to it. I've laid down a handful of smaller dead hem/firs here with the 120. It takes time to look at the angles and the "what-ifs" before proceeding. These ones were next door and the neighbor did not use the property there, but would mow the lawn under them. That drove me nuts so I took away the hazard one day.
If you had two dozers and a long anchor chain you might be able to pull them down.....if you can keep the dozers in the clear. Large excavator is probably the most practical.
If you have enough protection you can confidently work under dead or rotten trees. This particular paddock was 500 acres of dead timber that had been chemically treated. We raked it into piles in three and a half days after pulling it with the two dozers.
I'll bang the trunk with a backhoe, (that's all I have). 23 feet reach gives me some margin of safety. If nothing comes crashing down, I can push gently on the trunk. Most dead trees can be pushed over in one piece. Other choice is chaining a snatch block to the trunk as high as I dare. I then winch them down. I did a live Cottonwood one time. It yielded 3.5 cords of not very good firewood. I miscalculated the height of the tree, the Power Wagon ended up in the top branches. No damage, but it sure made my heart pound!
I'm fairly confident with the 973 in trees with hydrostats you can really creep up slowly. Sometimes it doesn't matter how easy you bump them the top seems to whip back towards you. We have lots of oaks dying in this part of the country and elm disease. As for chaining them down with two machines that would never work in this part of the country. Some of the root wads are 10 foot across or more and may pull out of the clay 4 or 5 foot down. I've had oaks that once pushed down I couldn't get the root wad rolled out of the hole with the 73. Have to push dirt in around the and walk them up to get them to move. With the clay we have here most trees are tight unless it real wet then you don't have the traction to do a lot.
I don't often deal with clay. At home it is rock, at "the land" it's sand. We did an underground service a few weeks ago. There it was rock hard ?clay? there was enough football to baseball sized rock, even after digging it out with backhoe, you couldn't get a hand shovel full. 46" deep ditch was exactly as wide as the bucket. Walls were utterly vertical. I can't figure out how trees grow in soil like that.
Yesterday I walked through my grove of ash. They're more dead than I thought with a few already fallen. One end of the grove looks to have been killed longer with a few at the other end still a little alive. Too dangerous to doze I think. Probably still too dangerous, but I thought about notching them on a calm day and waiting for the wind to finish them off. I'm going to have to earn the deer hunters to avoid the area.
Anchor chains would never work, we'd thought about that, and as for walking up and bumping anything, its usually never the one that your working on that would get you, its the one's that your not watching that will end up coming over the machine that will kill you. The other issue is, the larger taller dead ash are in the center of the ditch and the killed off shorter box elders are around the outside, so in order to get at any of them, I'd have to deal with the short stuff first, and the only place to shove it is in towards the taller stuff. I've been around enough dead trees in my day to know when something is far too dangerous to get close to and work safely around and this ravine is the definition of just that, something waiting to kill someone and I really don't plan on it being me or my crew, after all, until I take the job, its really not my problem nor my liability issues. Its only after I agree to do the job am I liable for what happens when I'm onsite. We've burned down standing dead trees before that were too dangerous to get near, wait for the right day and the ideal conditions and set the base on fire and wait them out, the fire works its way up the tree and when it weakens it enough, gravity takes care of bringing it down safely................but I've never done it to hundreds at one time before, usually only a hand full at a time over a distance enough we can safely get around each tree individually and isolate them so to speak. The job we're just finishing up was bad enough, nearly 100 dead ash in that job in one area the size of about a half an acre or so, when you'd shove one down, the impact as it fell into others would bring several more down at the same time and the impact as they hit the ground would bring a few more down, there's no control whats so ever and no way to predict what, where, how many would come down and no way to predict where it was safe to be when things would start to fall. Not something I like doing or anywhere I like to be when unexpected things start to happen and we have more than one machine running at the same time. The whole idea of standing back safely and shooting fire into and onto the tree trunks to ignite them is appealing, you have to remember there is an enormous amount of dead stuff and tops already on the ground to start the fire with and keep it fed for a while, I just don't know if it would be enough to sustain the fire and get the tops and limbs burned off and get them all or enough to drop so it would be safe to be around and go in and grub and clear the rest out once the fire subsides. In theory it would work fine, reality....................might be different and once started, I'd have to do some checking, but I'm thinking I'm liable for anything that happens after the start day. So if it doesn't work according to theory and we can't get enough to burn down, that means if someone would get hurt later on because I can't safely work around it, I might be liable with a signed liability waiver for the owner and their insurance company.
Liability is definitely a concern. I'm in a corner.....if I do nothing with my dead trees I may be liable. Too dangerous to doze. If I notch them and wait for wind to bring them down I may be liable for a hunter going through. It will be difficult to find someone with insurance to take them down at this point too.
Vermont is said to have asbestos forests. Kind of a bad joke, 'cause conditions COULD be right for a forest fire. Here, it rains at least once a week. Dominantly deciduous forest always has a deep "sponge" of soggy leaf decaying on the ground. A rain free week mid summer, fire might burn only the very top layer of loose leaves. One arson fire burned over 6-1/2 acres, went out by itself. It burned only the upturned tips of 6 months dead maple leaves. After the fire, you had to look close to realize it had burned. I've heard of burning standing hollow trees with a roaring wood fueled fire at the base. Not sure I could pile enough dry fire wood to make a solid tree burn up. In other climates forest fire is a real concern. Read the book: The Week Maine Burned. A staggering story of 1947 October. A drought in Maine during hunting season, a careless hunter with a cigarette is believed to have started the fire on Mount Desert Island. Simultaneously, other fires elsewhere. Millions of acres, millions of homes were destroyed. I've lost track of the death toll.
I don't see fire being practical, or less liability at least. Could be wrong? Anchor chain is not readily available in Iowa as far as I know, and probably not the dozers needed to pull over the native trees in your soil either. What could work would be two larger sized tractors with a suitable sized cable between them, and a way to get it high up the tree. You say this is a ravine, how far out would the tractors have to be to get the cable 20' or so up the trunk? Then have something like a few cable clamps to catch the trunk and either pull it over, or snap off, or just snap off the loose limbs and ride over as it bends. Now that I think about it, I don't think I'd want two large tractors, rather one medium tractor sized to not be able to break the cable, and a truck or smaller tractor on the other side as a brake, and to pull the cable back.
Before I owned as much equipment, I had a 1956 Power Wagon with two winches. I'd use a snatch block & a ladder to place the pulley as high as I dared. Truck front chained to a healthy tree, or a couple vehicles/tractors. Other end of winch cable to similar. I've never failed to pull them down. I only have 180feet of cable, so I sometimes had to supplement cable with a number of 3/8 transport chains.
Ash usually aren't hollow so getting a fire up the middle of them won't work. I don't have a good answer, I've had some fairly good size tops fall on the cab with no damage but you don't want to make that a habit. Cleaning around the area and getting a good fire started is probably safest. Loaders or excavators would be my choice if I had to do the job. A long reach excavator if someone was willing to use one for this. What diameter are most of the trees?
If you were to stay far enough away from the trees so they couldn't be pulled over on top of you, doubt anything I own would even pull the anchor chain itself, let alone grub any tree's. The burn thing isn't something that would bother me one bit, pick a nice winter day with some snow cover on most everything, keeping in mind, this isn't near anything else, its a ravine in the middle of a farm, the nearest building would be a 1/2 miles away and it would have to jump two roads to get to those, which I doubt would ever happen, that and it would have scorch several farms in between which have no corn stalks left out on them anyhow, cattlemen own them and everything is either chopped for silage or round baled after harvest. Only this farmers corn stalks would be an issue, and as I told him, chisel the whole farm when he's done combining and it should be a non issue. The other thing to bear in mind is this, wait them out, stay away and not plant along the boarder or better yet bid those acres into a set aside program and not farm near this at all, eventually they will fall down and nobody would get hurt, post signs stating to keep out private property and keep those signs up and consult with an attorney and have him or her deal with your insurance company and work a deal out till the trees are safe enough to pile up and burn. Like I told him, he has options and right now plenty of them and to keep calm and bide for some more time. As for burning standing trees, we've done it before many times, when they are that rotten and if you can get the right conditions that will dry them out, like in the dead of winter and still have snow cover, they really do burn good, the key is figuring out how to get close enough to them to light them up and not get hurt with falling debris. We've also done it in the dead of summer when everything is green and growing full tilt, then nothing else burns in my area but the dead stuff. Rotten tree's burn great, take very little to ignite and once lit, keep burning really well till the top heavy weight topples them over or they burn down enough only the trunk is left standing. We've also burned some that overnight they fell and the next day, there was nothing left but ashes, they burned up completely, then all we had to do is grub the stump out. D6, I'd venture a guess you have insurance, just call the company your insured with and start asking questions, general ones about liability and see what they tell you, you can also post signs to keep out and don't give anyone permission to hunt for the next few years, after all its your land and you don't have to provide permission to enter. Most insurance companies will give you answers of some sort, some better than others, ask them what to do with the dead trees, eventually they'll fall down on their own, gravity always wins in the end and at the rate ash rot, it won't take that many more years anyhow.
I don't know about Ia. but we are supposedly allowed to use old tires to start brush piles. Dead ash should burn easy. I hate asking insurance companies anything unless you have a really good agent you can trust.
Get one of these and turn it horizontal https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29132702/helicopter-chainsaw/
Now I've seen everything!
It occurs to me that trees seldom fall except during a storm. I won't say it can't happen, but it doesn't happen often. I've got to believe a feller/buncher, or long reach excavator would be an efficient way to knock them down. More logical solution is post the area, hazard keep out.
You'd have to call the DNR and ask them yourself, they are in charge of what is or isn't allowed in your state, but since they are a federal agency, I wouldn't bank on it being legal. You can also ask your local sheriffs department what their stance is on that, I'd also want it in writing from both before I did it, and ask what happens if someone files a complaint about you burning them and what happens then. The limb saws, watched the James Bond movie myself several times but despite sawing a car in half, they are only designed to saw small limbs, the wait time to get them to come is in the years, the cost was prohibitive and the likely hood of it happening before everyone involved died of old age isn't very good, they are kept busy doing major power lines in remote area's, they are great to watch in person though especially if your a pilot yourself, made me walk away thinking those guys are beyond crazy.
It does seem like a lot could go wrong with that. Flying a helicopter over trees that way, you'd be at the mercy of whatever your saw might get caught on.
I did a job for the USACE maybe 15-20 years ago to remove a couple stands of Pine Beetle damaged Loblolly Pines that were cordoned off from the public due to the hazard. I did it with the PC200 and the mulcher head. Same kind of situation with dead standing timber that if shook, could come down on you easily. It was a job of patience as I test pushed each tree and then started notching with the spinning head if I could not shake anything loose with the push. It was a job of some pucker-factor but I never really thought much about it other than to be safe in my process. I was not allowed out of my cab while working those sections. I deal with these kinds of trees on a daily basis but generally not so many in a grove that there could be a domino effect. My general approach is to push slowly at first to see if it will just break over and if not, try to rattle it from the safest side so there is little chance of crap hitting my cab. If it's a really big dead tree with lots of overhanging limbs that, if shook, will come down on my cab, those I pre-cut with the Husqy and gently push with the machine if a push is required. It's all about patience and slow movements so that nothing "pops" or gets a bad shake at the wrong time. If I had a big job like what is being described on this thread and if it was way worse than dealing with those dead pines, I would build an attachment for the excavator to reach up higher, gently engage the trunk and then attempt to snap off the upper sections of the tree and work my way down until firm wood beyond the ability of the attachment was reached. Once the worst hazards are down, mulch everything to grade level. It's likely that dead Ash will mulch really fast. I've had this concept of an attachment in my head for years now but no jobs big enough to justify anything further. Just 'cause I'm operating does not mean my heads not thinking about alternative ways of accomplishing the work. Some of these new grapples with bucking saws built in may also be an alternative but the trick will be to not shake anything while working it. I've never run one of these units so I really don't know how smooth you could be with one. I can envision a slow grab with a light tilt pressure while engaging the saw with continued tilt. Once that cut is completed it will likely jump a bit and shake off anything loose. A smooth operator might be able to keep good control with one of these attachments.
It's also the absolute worst phase of flight to be in. Hover out of ground effect with no forward speed and little altitude. You do not get an autorotation from that scenario. It comes down mostly like a toolbox with a broken handle. Even the shakebolt pilots have some forward speed at all times and time everything.
This might sound a little off but I have picked broken tops out of the tops of trees with an all terrain extendaboom forklift. The bigger ones reach about 55 foot out. Just a thought a day with one breaking all the tops off then it's controllable. You can get a picking boom on the forks that reaches another 10 to 15 feet. I've set some fairly heavy steel with one of those.
I've also got a grinding head on one of my excavators and there is no way I'm going near these dead ash with it, even with a complete fabricated steel rops guard covering the entire cab and steel sheeting blanketing the whole machine, until the trees are down on the ground, I'll pass and I've ground off at ground level five foot diameter tree's before and shoved them over with the grinding head, then mulched the whole tree up and ground the stump into the ground a foot or so with my grinding head, just to bump or tap these things, will bring the top over on your machine, they usually break off about half way up and come over you without warning or one next to you will topple over you as your watching the one your working on. Most of these are about 10 feet spacing in about any direction. I'd thought to use the head to shoot larger limbs off the box elders from around the outside perimeter into the dead ash to try to knock them down or hammer them somewhat and knock the stuff down that way. If you do it right you can sling human body size stuff a couple hundred feet into the timber, but you have very little control for aiming the chunks, we mainly do it along timber boarders to save having to grind it all up, mainly couple hundred pound limbs, just shoot it farther into the timber just to get rid of it, and let it rot down there to save time. I can reach up about 20 feet with the grinding head and can cut with it upside down to notch the tops and then still shove them over to break them off, grinding with the head upside down also shoots the chips and debris up and away from you, which aids in knocking off limbs on tree's behind or around the one your grinding on. If you can get the top to stay connected to the trunk by shoving it over, and get it to roll over and lean next to the trunk, then you can grind both the top and trunk together from where it broke off all the way to the ground, saves having to chase the tops and limbs that way and is also quicker to grind the whole tree to chips. Its been raining here the last few days, again, and we went today to look it over some more, I'm not even considering grinding it, not wanting to track up to any of it with anything I own or have to fix or pay for and in all reality, mother nature can do the work for me and when it gets to the point of being safe, I'll deal with it then, my crew has worked hard to talk me out of this job until it is safer to do and today they might just have convinced me to just wait it out, and let gravity take do its thing, there are enough other things to do the way it is, I'm not sure we can get everything else done anyhow before spring, why take on even more still, that and I doubt anyone else will do it so it'll be there next year or the year after that or basically whenever I feel safe doing it.
RE: forklift. I could see that working, but really only on flat ground. They tip over at the drop of a hat, outriggers or not.
I have a friend who was using a telehandler to bear against a cottonwood. The tree tipped to one side as they started the back cut and tore the boom in half. Lucky it didn’t land on someone.
The longer reach telehandlers are designed to lift and carry only, if you push with them, you'll only make that mistake once, after you shove the boom and cylinders together and mangle both and pay the bill or buy the whole boom assembly new, doubt you'll do it again. Not sure most are aware of this or not, but when ash are grown in close proximity to one another, they grow straight and tall, its very likely the first large limbs are at the 40 foot mark or higher yet, most hang out away from the tree upwards to 20 feet or more in all directions, then those trees closest to the outside of the timber or ravine have a tendency to lean or hang towards the light, which is outward, not a lot, say at the top 5-10 feet. So when you track up, drive up or anything else, your literally driving under the top which already leans over your head, and the larger branches [those large enough to kill you on impact] and the whole top already lean far past your head, to give it an even gentle wiggle or nudge, probably isn't the smartest thing you can do and live to tell about it. They are in a ditch or ravine, the wind hardly at all or ever really affects them or even hits them, hence the reason they are still standing for this long, if they were in the open or near a hill top, they'd have been down years ago, so the longer they stand, the worse they rot and the more dangerous they are. Now maybe I'm being too harsh here, but it was all completely preventable by the landowner, I believe the term for it is management, many have heard of this term, but seldom use it when it comes to timbers or non farmed acres such as waterways, field boarders, fence lines, pastures, etc. The thing that should have happened the second ash bore hit was sell everything that was an ash tree or give them away, cut them down or grub them out, whatever it took to remove those large mature tree's so it wouldn't be an issue. But to come to the owners salvation here somewhat and knowing the family, his kids, [glorified tree huggers] wouldn't ever let that happen, about like most who know nothing about trees or timber, so they stood there and nothing was done with them. The next issue is the box elders, why only chemically kill them and not after they were dead remove them?? again it gets back to the kids and family who didn't know he was the one who killed them off in the first place so how could be remove them once they were dead??............... then one day the mother called them all and told them you know what, a dead tree almost fell on dads combine and quite possibly could have killed him.....................wow reality just hit, they in fact would have killed their dad and felt guilty about for the rest of their lives, and their mother would have known without a doubt why those trees are still there due to [I'm guessing here now] they voiced their opinions for the last 40 years. So now something has to be done in the NAME of safety and to save face not only within the relation and rest of the family, but the whole neighborhood and community, after all who wants to be remembered for the one who inadvertently killed their dad by hugging tree's?? My crew brought this whole discussion up yesterday when trying to talk me out of doing it for now.
Crane with wrecking ball, though, most cranes are not designed as rough terrain machines. I'll agree, let nature take its course.
Det cord! Really, could you clear a couple lanes that way then safely use a drag chain?
There you go! They won't sell me det cord but tannerite I can buy anywhere. Bore a hole, stuff it full, step back and have some target practice with a high-power rifle.....boom.
I'd never given that a thought to use tannerite, my kids use that for target practice all the time. I'm not sure you'd get enough shock wave from it to knock the tops or limbs off the tree's, maybe we need the military to do explosives drills and set some shape charges, they could level everything within minutes. I still remember as a kid my dad going to the hardware store and buying dynamite by the stick and we'd go home and he'd blast stumps and an old cement footing on a building we needed to expand and take an old wall out of. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever to blow stumps out in the timber.
“I still remember as a kid my dad going to the hardware store and buying dynamite by the stick and we'd go home and he'd blast stumps” Me too. When my dad passed, he still had a “powder license” card from the 70’s, I ran across. It was used for blowing choker holes under felled old-growth.
I still have mine, I can still transport powder if I wanted. "Loggers 2" the best choker hole installer ever invented. We used most of that during the winter to shoot holes in frozen snow/ice.
I was one of those teenagers allowed to hold public office at age 18. VERY small town, I was elected Selectman, dubious honor. At 19, the Chair of the board got in a spat with the Town Clerk & resigned. I became Chairman of the board. Another Board member was an old man, often held a page upside down pretending to read it. We have three culverts in town crossing Otter Creek. The Creek flows a good lot of water & beavers are opportunists, preferring to block a culvert. One culvert was 9' tall, maybe 12' wide. beaver would block it again in two days. Then, town elected officers could buy dynamite. The dealer seemed suspicious first time a kid in a rusty Volvo bought dynamite & caps, but my papers were in order, & I had the statute book with me. I recall one day, we spent an hour with pipe & a long wooden dowel working 8 sticks to the bottom of the culvert. It improved water flow a bit, but did NOT open it up. Tony suggested the other forty sticks go next. It took hours to set the charges. The entire road lifted a few inches, then settled with no visible damage to the pavement. The culvert was CLEAN! I feel there was mud & sticks miles away, but probably not. Beavers blocked it so I had to repeat (with less dynamite) next weekend. Finally put six sticks in the beaver house. We were trouble free for a few years. We've spent a fortune in recent years building a cage around each culvert that can be cleaned with an excavator. We had a contractor upgrading one yesterday. A beaver could be seen checking out the work.
You should be able to clear that land with the dozer and skidsteer. The bigger trees might be a little tough.
It takes a lot of det cord even at 100 gn to take a tree down.
We opted for the burn down method, was cheap, somewhat easy and safe and didn't take all that long, but the best part was, as the tree's fell, the impact on frozen ground took out the bulk of the dead stuff, that and when a lot of them fell down, they knocked over and knocked limbs off the worst stuff that was the most dangerous. All we did was make the farmer provide us with ample numbers of good dry corn stalk round bales, basically whatever number I wanted I got, used a dozer to shove the bales one at a time down near a tree, cut the strings and since the bales were bone dry, they literally blew apart and fell into a nice pile I could just move around the tree trunk, or it they were in too bad of shape, we just left the bale as close to the tree as we could, then cut the strings. In my state the DNR has a provision to use flammable devices [not junk tires] but anything else, like waste oil, cruddy diesel fuel not good enough to do anything else with, gasoline that has been watered down, you name it, its allowed. The catch is this simple statement, you can use the stuff for the purpose of starting the fire, you can't use the fire as a reason to burn the stuff up and get rid of it. So we took a five gallon bucket of old waste oil, slopped up the truck of the tree first, shoved the round bale up to it, lit it up and walked away and waited it out, as in we did this to a couple dozen tree's spread out up the ravine and lit them up, called in a controlled burn and let it burn overnight. There was just enough snow cover to contain the fire and keep it from spreading and once the tree's burned through enough, they fell over. Between the impact of them hitting frozen ground, and colliding with other tree's, they knocked enough down to actually make it safe to work around the rest. Now granted we did this quite a few times, not sure how many we lit on fire, must have been 50-60 tree's over the course of a few weeks, but it was enough to allow us to work and get near those that were not an issue to take down with either a feller buncher or else an excavator. Used an excavator and thumb to pile the stuff up and just kept burning till we were pretty much done. Granted there will be stumps to remove this coming year, but the bulk of the tree's and dead stuff is down, burned up and gone and nobody got hurt, not even close to getting hurt and none of my equipment was damaged either. The only real pain was to keep going and checking on the progress of things all the time and to actually throw the waste oil on the dead tree trunks, kind of a sloppy messy ordeal, but in the end and in the dead of winter, the stuff burned really well. I just told the property owner, next time around, either sell that crap when it has a little value, or give it away or call before its so badly rotten we can actually clear the stuff safely and save everyone the grief and headaches.
safe is good! The waste oil and diesel, I remember wearing some of that myself.
I don't know what species or size of trees you are talking about but this sounds like a huge waste of timber.
A few good #330 conibears and someone with the ability to set and check them would keep the beavers controled.
In recent years that's exactly what the Town is doing. Somehow a few survive, Next year it begins anew. We've built mechanical means to clean out culverts, tried screens, cages. Recently, we added a second pipe running upstream, so far so good. Mount Tabor has about 33,000 acres nobody would object to a dam. It's a shame these overgrown rats have to block culverts.
Charles, you should have raised you hand sooner, it could have all been yours..............all you had to do was show up and remove it..........for free of course, plus sign a liability wavier. Now since you didn't do that, I'll extend an offer to you, I know of plenty more in equal shape and quality as these trees you can have for free as well, now to be fair, they can't be hauled on any log trailer, they are too far gone and rotten for that, doubt they can be chipped or mulched either, think you missed that by a few years or more as well. Now I know the argument can be made they should have done something before the tree's got that bad, but that argument would have to be made to the property owners, not me, I've had that conversation hundreds of times over the years but did me no good and in the end I did what I was hired to do, dispose of it all how the landowner wanted it done and got paid very well to do it. So in my view, I turned something nobody wanted into cash that went into my bank account or I did what the customer wanted in order to get paid for services rendered, the last I knew it was called business.
I missed the details that the timber was dead,my bad.
You are WRONG! Have you never seen Swamp Loggers, Mountain Men, or a dozen other television shows. Logs I'd push over a steep hill, they claim are worth thousands. What in Hell are you going to get from these? There is a whole new fad; River Tables. Any rotten piece of debris is split, bookmatched, and placed in a mold. 40 gallons of epoxy is dumped on top & it is sold for many thousands. UTTERLY PREPOSTEROUS!
Take that up with the property owners, its their stuff and the last I knew, they could do whatever they want with anything they own, no different than you and your property. The offer is good for you as well Willie, if that's the case, I can line you up with tens of billions of dollars worth of the stuff, just come and get it, do whatever you want with it, pretty sure nobody who currently has the stuff cares how rich you become, their only concerned with getting the stuff gone as quickly as possible. But while your busy believing everything on TV, you may have also noticed land values in my state went up over 2000 dollars an acre last year alone, its selling for over 20k an acre now near me and heading much higher, so when you factor in the value of the land this junk is sitting on, farmers and landowners everywhere don't need to rely on TV for anything, the reality of the situation is, the dead trees are sitting on very valuable land, for a whole lot of purposes beside waiting for someone to show up and buy the millions of dollars worth of dead tree's to turn into billions by molding them into table tops. I'm more of the follow the money kind of person myself, there are hundreds of landowners in my area that feel for a multitude of reasons, its far better to pile up the crap and burn it today and get it gone fast, to prepare for the future and earn money in different ways that are much more reliable than anything you can see on TV, and until that philosophy changes anytime soon, which I doubt will ever happen, things will only pickup and speed up in the quest to clean up the whole area and countryside. It might not be on TV, but liability is changing, some laws have been passed, like if drugs are made on your property and your the landowner, your held partial liability, especially clean up costs and enforcement costs, that alone is a huge driving force to get rid of abandoned buildings and clearing off old junky timbers that have nothing of value in them, cost of equipment is skyrocketed the last two decades, so what cost nothing to repair, now cost tens of thousands of dollars and insurance companies are putting their foot down and telling everyone, for insurance purposes, your rates will be lower if those tree's and old buildings are gone, and poof, that's all it took for owners to spring into action and its gone. With land values skyrocketing, many sales agents are telling sellers to get that stuff gone and it will increase the value of your property X amount, much more than the cost to remove it all before the sale, so that's a huge driving force behind the clean up going on, those who bought high dollar land don't even have the paperwork completed and they want all that crap gone in days, not years and the list just keep going as to the reasons, none involve and nobody cares about anything seen on TV, so I'm sorry, maybe in your area people and even yourself watch and believe what they see on TV, but in my area, nobody cares about anything but what is actually going on and for reasons they can relate to locally, these are only a portion of the reasons behind what is the driving force to get rid of all the garbage, there are many more that would take pages to address. The reason I posted this stuff in the thread was to tell others how its possible to safely get those old big dead widow makers down and NOT have to wait it out for the wind to blow them over, because time is money and everyone wants it done today, they don't like to be told wait a few years for it to be safe to work around and since I'm only one business, I can't do it all across several states, but this did work for me, give it a try for yourself and keep your customers happy as well. Also, increase your profits by taking into account the risk involved and the time you spend doing the job.............but that depends on your competition and how they do things and what they charge and also their capabilities. I'd love to hash this over more but I'm heading out this morning to move machines, I have far more stuff to pile up and burn, even if it is worth millions, its still not mine to sell but do as I'm hired to do and that's to light it up and watch it burn, and as I drive around, I'm not alone, there are plenty more contractors, farmers themselves and property owners doing the same thing, apparently nobody wants plastic molded rotten table tops for their house, would that be the consensus we can draw then?? If thats the case, I'm going to burn about 100,000 table tops today worth what several grand a piece, should be an eventful day, maybe Swamp loggers will show up to do a show on the destruction of valuable table tops in a one day burn event................what do you think?? In all honesty, I'm thinking there are several million table tops being burned this week alone in a 60 mile radius of me, some really nice old barn boards went up in smoke yesterday alone on one fire I watched for a while along the road, was told the person that wanted them pulled a no show and the farm is being sold in a month so the barn had to go. I told the owner he could report a loss on his taxes as to the 3 dollars a board foot he didn't get from the sale of the boards, all he did was laugh and said, think I"ll make it up in a month or so on the sale of the acreage instead. Have a good day everyone, I'm going to at least stay warm via a nice outdoor bon fire, probably several more tomorrow as well, might even drag out into the weekend the way things are looking.
Like I said,I failed to read the part in the thread about the trees being dead, my apoligies.
I wondered if you could get an old flatbed semi trailer, preferably an extendable, and use it as a tree pusher/knocker from far enough away the widowmakers wouldn't be anywhere close to the operator. A much smaller version of the treepushers R. G. LeTourneau made for Africa.
Please don't think I'm criticizing any way you got it down without getting hurt. I think the TV shows pretending these waterlogged, muddy snags have value, or standing trash either are fraud. Show me a check where a mill owner bought this stuff.
I am surprised you can burn anything there anymore. In Texas, in our city, we could clear land of anything and everything, as long as it was zoned for agriculture use. However, if it did not have an agriculture exemption, you had better not touch any tree on the property, or the code enforcement and police would be out there in a minute. On almost every property we cleared over a 15 year period, we had code people or the police come out and TRY to stop us. When they found out it was ag zoned, they left us alone. Now, as to burning, that was a different story. We could not burn anything we cleared, unless we had a state permit, county permit, and city permit, and followed all the rules they had, which were numerous and burdensome. Since burning was out of the equation, we mulched everything on the whole 2000 acres we cleared. This land was not extremely valuable when we started, as any developer could not clear cut trees without heavy fines and fees. However, once we cleared it all under ag zoning, it all became acreage that was sold by the SQ. FT. Land clearing is a weird business in today's world of regulations.
Many states have rules just like yours, in my state, cites and towns have burning bans put on and you have to go through the permitting process. Certain area's have what's called by many "tree police" and those are to say the least, a complete disaster zone for anyone with property within them and its gets really complicated fast, but the jest is, even if a tree dies, it gets replaced, not with what the owner wants, but what he's told, is what it gets down to. As for the rest of the states rules, yes they have some, but it gets so complicated and confusing, it would take a dozen or more pages just to try to type it all out, and once done, take a lawyer to decipher it all. But the short and dirty answer is this, yes open burning is still allowed in my state, [rural area's] but my state like many others are trying to put up rules, long before any burning takes place to add to the cost, delay the process and complicate the issue and make landowners and home owners lives a bit more miserable in the process, would be the jest of it all. Now I can't change policy, but I can say this much, if all the tree huggers of the world would ever actually think for one second instead of standing around, hollering, yelling, screaming, protesting and creating laws, they'd do the world a huge favor but most of all tree's. Their thoughts are to create laws to reduce and block tree removal, but all they end up doing is not only NOT save tree's, but create in everyone a huge need to get rid of them all while they still can mentality, and never allow another one to START to grow. Which is an over simplified version of what's taking place all across many states right now with inflated land prices and has been taking place the last 20 plus years, only its speeding up with more land being sold at higher values.
One of the first places I cleared and cleaned up back in 2009,, was a 35 acre tract just off the end of a fairly nice neighborhood. The property was a mees of brush, trash trees and old concrete dump piles. As I was mulching brush and trees, a lady waved me down. She told me I was destroying all of "their" nice trees. I promptly told her I did not know she was one of the landowners, but that the VP of the land company had me doing the clearing. Of course,that shut her up and she left. Next day the "tree police" showed up, but could not do anything as it was "ag" land. I turned the property into a beautiful piece of land that was then used as a wheat field for many years. You are correct though. All the stupid tree rules did, was convince the landowners that all their properties needed to be clearcut, before going on the market and then changing out of ag. status.
The same thing happened in Queensland in the late 1990's when the government was changing the landclearing laws. Millions of acres were cleared so it then couldn't be called reminent vegetation. Saved a lot of trees that did.
Willie, sorry to have read you post wrong and jumping on you like I did, next time I'll clarify better, hope there are no hard feelings. Don't get me wrong guys, everyone used to depend on timbers for everything, from heating their house, to lumber used to build buildings, fence posts were cut from timbers, you name it, it was utilized, the last 70 or more years, nobody bothers with anything from them, nobody culls out bad tree's, new tree's are not allowed to grow via management, once a logger gets done, nothing is done with the timber, its just forgotten about basically and before long, there is nothing left of worth, nothing anyone wants or will ever want is in them, some hunters might use the timber somewhat, but that's about it. With the uptick in save the tree's mentality and new ownership of the land, cleanup is under way, but that in itself isn't new, anyone who buys land, does things to it, shapes driveways, builds a new house, puts up hunting blinds, shapes waterways, you name it they do it, its now theirs and they bought it and plan to do whatever to it. I've cleared thousands of acres over the years, I have yet to clear off anything descent, if you'd roll back the clock 100 years or so, none of what I've done would need doing, the owners would have done themselves, those 150 feet from the fences, would never have gotten that bad, once a tree fell over it would have cleaned up by the owner, in the last 70 years if a tree falls over, nobody needs the firewood, just farm around it, someday he'll get to clean it up, then the next on falls over and so on and before long your 150 feet away from the fence, you can't see the fence, someone might need to repair the fence but if you ignore it long enough, maybe not, livestock disappear so the fence isn't needed anyway, the other side of the fence looks like this side and it just keep going. If the work is close to a road, people will stop by and scream at you, swear at you and harass you for destroying those valuable tree's, first thing I do is look around and ask, you mean those dead rotten ones laying on the ground, the answer is always, yes?? Well their free, bring a pickup and you have can take it home, lay it down behind or in front of your house and keep it safe yourself.............only to be told I'm an a**hole that should be shot for what I'm doing. I've been threatened to be sued so many times over the years, if I'd have put a dollar aside every time I'd been threatened, I could retire by now, as of yet, none have ever materialized, I've been video taped [for evidence to be used in court] I've been put on the internet via video for the destruction of timber and tree's [was only told about never saw it myself] have even been called by attorneys and threatened if I didn't stop doing what I was doing, and none of it was by anyone who owned or was anyway connected to the land I was working on. I as of yet, have never had stuff vandalized, but those I've worked for have hired law enforcement out of their pocket to stand guard all night long beside my equipment [we agreed on this beforehand]. And the whole while I'm thinking to myself, if anyone would attempt to tell any of these people what they should or shouldn't do with anything they owned, all hell would break loose and they'd hire an attorney and file suit against those attempting to tell them anything, its always a one way street with those people. Well along came the Dereco in Iowa a couple years ago, which in itself if tragic, I had kids of my own in it at the time, all turned out safe, but the destruction was unbelievable to say the least, I don't think anyone who lived through it will ever forget it or the aftermath anytime soon. Now they say out of tragedy comes hope and survival....................I'm not sure, but out the Dereco might come the fact laws could be changed, turns out, even though the media won't report it and if they did they'd screw it so badly it wouldn't matter anyhow. But for the first time ever, many can find out what laws do in fact mean to them, starting with tree's, many found out really fast, tree damage is covered by insurance, tree removal isn't, so the owners had to bear that cost, they also are finding out, stuff done for free at the time, will be taxed on those who had it done and be collected later on down the road, so that whole massive tree cleanup to clear city streets, increases taxes over decades to recoup those costs, [who would have ever seen that coming] and lastly, those laws in place in many area's, namely to replace tree's once they are removed, might have some stiff opposition when the homeowner who couldn't afford it, had to pay tens of thousand of dollars to remove the old destroyed trees just two years ago from their property, not to mention all the damages to their houses the tree's caused that weren't covered by insurance, many are also finding out insurance doesn't cover 100 percent of the damage, [apparently its a shock to some if not most] Now the city wants them to pay to replace their trees, or be given more trees to plant back?? and basically orders them to put back..........yea that might not be going too well at the moment. Right now in my state, in many cities I don't think tree huggers are being rallied behind at the moment, matter of fact, I think my state is kind of being avoided by them at this time and people want the laws changed, to make it the property owner decision IF they want trees planted back at all. Big government of all kinds can single out a few at a time and make examples of them and force action against them, but when it comes to the masses, maybe not so much, those masses vote and right now, their not happy and even though they may have the right to be upset, I hope they all have to obey the laws they voted in themselves and shut up about it obey those laws, THEN change those laws back. Time will tell how this goes, but right now while there is controversy going on within the state, many are using it to their advantage and rightfully so. I can't discuss politics, but laws are not really politics, they are in place and things we are supposed to obey and observe and right now, those laws are really being talked about locally and many are upset over a whole raft of issues, starting with tree's and their definition and exactly who has the right to do what and who should or shouldn't be allowed to make that determination. As they say time will tell in the end, but for the first time in over 30 years, many can now understand for themselves what I've been trying to tell them all along, it might be nice to tell others what to do, but kind of sucks to be told by others what your going to do or else, especially when money is tight, and things are not going too well for you the way it is, you know, pretty much life in general. I know other areas deal with hurricanes, but things are designed to withstand some of those winds, my area has never seen those prolonged wind speeds before and virtually nothing was designed to take it, and they failed miserably due to that fact. Now the upside is, maybe some of the codes will be updated to help in later events, we'll see, again maybe some good can come out of a disaster.
Also with the correct size dozer and the right person running it, it will do much more work than 3 excavators, and keep the trash clean enough for chipping. Chipping is the new burning. It is best to log first before clearing and is how it is done most of the time. Huge fir stumps need to be split to be chipped or even burned.
Here around us Loggers will only take those saleable logs, Walnut, White Oak, Hard Maple varieties, some considered trash wood used for pallets where if anything as Elm or berry trees, Hackberry, Mulberry and Crabapple end up as brush pile fodder. SOME Fruit trees as Apple, Peach end up as smoker charcoal where the remnants of walnut and oak tops get harvested by charcoal makers for that end product. Still a few smaller grade contractors here do shove work with dozers but pretty in frequent anymore as a larger excavator with a good operator can sit in place and clear 1/4-1/5 acre area sizes building a burn pile while only rotating the house. Excavator can also stir a burning pile without actually crawling into it. Most common method here of land clearing.
Burning anything here is frowned on or prohibited by law. Dozers used for clearing is going away to a large extent. All my clearing customers over the years had at most two of them per development site and usually one was just a spare. They all went to multiple excavators of 200 and 300 sizes. Dozers can't load grinders, operators for the last twenty years don't know how to push a pile in a way to drop the dirt and dozers get stuck far more often than an excavator does. Excavators can stack or load logs for transport. The discussion shouldn't be what works best by itself. Both machine types are best used in combination as determined by the grade of land, type of vegetation and ultimate goal of the clearing process. My customers typically had three to five excavators on a site with one dozer. All that work is done by bid so dollars per acre is what hones down decisions of which machines to use.
There are several types of people doing the clearing in my area, those doing bid work, which is usually done for developers and have time deadlines and penalties involved, that done for landowners, some is bid, most isn't, and that done for farmers, about half and half for bidding and now lately, that done for sellers and also buyers, sort of a whole new breed of work so to speak. In my area clearing is an afterthought at best, whoever you like uses whatever they have for machines to get the job done however you prefer it done. In order to save money, just shove and pile it, its the cheapest way to go short term. If you don't want to look at the junk and garbage left behind, depending on how you like it done, will determine who you hire to do it. Today those selling land, don't care, they need it done yesterday in order to get the land sold today at high prices and its worth more cleaned than the left as is, so its a dollar thing to clear it before the sale. Those buying it want the junk piles gone a week ago so they can farm it, others find out those selling it and had it cleared didn't do it legally per say and now they are in violation of something, usually the EPA involving asbestos with old house or building roofs and need to clean it up properly now or face fines. Some involving wood/lumber debris shoved into sink holes and ravines find out after the fact they can't do that, or in other words, they now own the property and have to clean it up to avoid fines and such a week after buying it as is. Some land that wasn't cleared before the sale, now the new owner wants the stuff gone for their own needs, whatever those might be, that's dependent on the new owners previous experiences involving clearing. Couple that to the excess rains we've been having the last 5 plus years and that puts a huge crunch on time for many, compelling far different tactics that what should be used to clear and clean up tree's, basically it gets down to, maybe its not done quite right, but its all we had time for today, worry about tomorrow when it comes, if it even comes, for sellers, no longer their problem, for buyers... it sort of seems to be their new problem to deal with. Different areas have different soil types, moisture and a host of other things do consider as well, for my area, dozer rakes should be used, but seldom ever are, basically because of mud, they flat out don't work in mud, and lately if your not working in mud, your not working at all is the jest of it. They really don't work the best in frozen conditions either and in the really wet area's, you clear when the ground is frozen somewhat to carry you, and it has to be cleared before you tile it in the spring, so thanks in part to the rainy weather, your now working in frozen ground, a whole new level of fun, which determines who's doing the work in the first place. I've been doing clean up after clearing jobs for over 20 years now, basically someone gets tired of looking or farming around or now needs the land the junk got piled on for something else and that's where I come in and clean it all up once for all. To me, it really doesn't matter how it got done, its a huge mess no matter what and its going to cost a lot to make it all go away. Dozer operators create the worst mess, having shoved everything into piles and have a huge mound of dirt surrounding the pile now that needs to be spread back out, sorted through, debris picked up and burned and the rocks disposed of. John is partly right, many don't know how to use a dozer and leave the dirt out of the piles, other can't with the conditions they are working in, not even using excavators sometimes its impossible to do the job correctly. I've been seeing a lot more of this lately, when its raining all the time and the seller needs to list the property in a week, and its done nothing but rain and not even an excavator can get around, yet the work goes on, yea, seen a lot of that after the fact, and using the correct machines means nothing if the conditions are not even remotely fit, I'd like to think eventually I can even work again in fit conditions, but I'm losing hope more so every day and year that passes that will again become a reality.
Every persons method will be different based upon terrain but the way I do land clearing in North Georgia is I do sections at a time. I’ll go in and use my forestry mulchers and mulch all the underbrush and smaller trees and then I’ll go back and start dropping the trees by digging around the trees and pushing them over so the stump/root ball stays attached. I’ll drop one tree at a time, cut the stump/root ball off, then use the forestry mulcher to mulch the tops of the trees then take the tree trunk and stumps/root ball and place in 2 separate piles and sometimes I’ll mulch the tree trunks and just put the stumps in a pile and burn or haul off. At times I’ll dig a pit and burn also but in the same process. Good logs I’ll carry off. Spartan Enterprise sepropertylandservices.com
As to the dropped trash here so far, just pushed it up as hide havens for Quail, Rabbit, even other rodents the Coyotes chase down. As those decay and collapse have added on a couple, have a good brood of Bob Whites we see on occasion. Can burn Spring and when snows in wither, no burns in summer even after rains, not worth it.