I have a few hundred feet of highway frontage, but need some of it cleared for more space. Some of the trees are maybe 14 to 16'' but most is smaller stuff. Would a skid steer be best for this? What about sawing the bigger trees down, grappling out the logs, then using a stump bucket to root out the stumps? Or would a dozer be best?Thanks
Depends on how fast you want it done and what your time is worth. I would probably just hire a dozer to come in and clear it for me. I can't imagine it would take more then a few hours and its fully done vs messing with a skidsteer, saw, grapple, and stump bucket. It could certainly be done that way however.
Ok thanks. There's a little more to my inquiry. Around here, there are thousands of acres of uprooted and broken-off trees. Do you think a dozer is the best/fastest way of clearing off all this mess so that people can either re-plant trees, clear for pasture, or whatever? I have been told a big excavator would be good. But I don't know.
Ita subjective, everyone has their own preference. I use a grapple and skid steer on brush and logs and for grubbing out small stuff, and then pull stumps with my backhoe. This method works and fits my budget, but I don't clear much land very fast. My grandpa uses a 16 ton excavator for felling, grubbing and sorting and then a medium sized dozer for pushing up into piles to burn. His equipment is the biggest he can pull behind his dump truck, so that was his limitation. He didn't want to buy a bigger truck and trailer. Another local outfit uses large excavators and larger dozers with root rakes. They accomplish a lot, but they also have a lot of money tied up in equipment and have to be productive to pay the bills. From what I've seen, a large excavator (30 ton or bigger) with a thumb can be a very productive machine.
A big excavator with a thumb would be the obvious choice to me to get more space cleared. Cleaning up broken off and down trees for pasture or planting trees doesn't seem like a sound investment to me. If you can burn it, you probably don't need to pull all the roots out and stack it, and if you can't burn it then you'll have to let it rot or mulch it anyway. I know this is a heavy equipment site, but sometimes it's not the best solution.
What would you say is a better investment in this case?
Resale value on the machine? Versatility if you keep the machine? Depreciation and maintenance? Doing the job cheapest? Half dozen Boer goats. In two years you'll have a VERY well fenced and relatively clean pasture (with a little help from a chainsaw and matches) and you can sell the goats offspring to pay back some of your aggravation.
I actually have 3 of the "fainting" goats. All they have to do is get excited, like at feeding time, and they stiffen up and fall over. Goats will clear alot of brush, but not the big stuff.
I don't know what you have to do in Florida to establish and maintain pasture, or plant trees. The areas I'm familiar with you could establish pasture by killing the trees but without removing the stumps. Planting trees is usually done after logging among the stumps, or in very sandy soils by a furrower to clear the slash in a planting furrow. If you want a lawn, or to plant crops, that's a different story and you'd need to pull the stumps. I guess some of it comes down to what you like to do also, if you have a skidsteer and love using it, the a grapple makes a lot of sense. If you have the goats and don't mind fencing them, and you're not in any hurry, then they work cheap.
Back when I was young and stupid...er, I worked for a tree planting company. Each team involved a tractor pulling a planter, which basically consisted of a frame, two tree boxes, a coulter and two packing wheels at the rear with a seat over them. On the seat was the poor dumb slob(me) poking the pine trees down in the furrow just ahead of the packing wheels, getting my hand torn up by briers and slapped by springy saplings pulled back and let-go by the coulter, The land was typically flat and relatively cleared and wet land was prepared by bedding. There were sticks, briers, and some small branches but very few stumps. They usually pushed most of that up in piles. We planted thousands of trees, each, every day running about 8 tractors. Thousands of acres were planted that way here in the 70's and 80's in nice neat rows. But that was over 35 years ago and they may do it differently now. I will watch and see because a LOT of trees will need to be re-planted here. I run over 200 sheep on my place so I practice pasture management. I plow, disk and plant my winter and summer grazing crops using a grain drill so, in my situation, stumps would be a no no for sure. At my place of business, I may just push out the smaller trees and saplings, leave the bigger pines for some shade. I love trees anyway. Heck, I might fence it and put some goats in there too.