Backhoe Dealing with pine trees

[1930]

Anyone here ever had to deal with their removal? Ive got a lot to remove. Ive already played around with them enough to know they arent very cooperative.

Sandy soil, tap roots go straight down and the trunk only gets larger underground.

Ive just ordered a Kubota tractor/backhoe and I plan to see what I can do, surely I can remove the 4 inchers and under but that still leaves alot of larger.

Im thinking of digging down one side ( once the tree is felled ) and just cutting off the stump underground with a battery powered sawzall but its worth asking here others experiences.

No Im not interested in hiring someone to come in and do it for me nor rent a piece of equipment at this point but thanks.

 

[Jstpssng]

Unless you are planning on selling the wood as sawlogs cut the stumps as high as you safely can. That will give you a little more leverage to pull on once you get the roots loosened up. I dug out some surprisingly big stumps with my little L275 and a small "CadPlan" backhoe which just rode on the 3 pth, although I was left with some pretty big holes.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Pretty small machine to deal with trees. MAYBE, the biggest TLB that CAT or DEERE make would be effective, but messy.

I have only cut them off and ground off the stumps. Or got an excavator to dig them out, making a huge mess.

Some places won't even allow you to burn stumps.

Grinding Pine Stumps. FUN but time consuming nevertheless.

 

[Wasmeneh]

Probably easier to cut them and,just grind the stumps. You can grind them below soil level. Had a lot of pines come down in the last hurricane. The tree guys that showed up were able to rip the downed stumps up with a Kubota skid steer with a grapple.

These were old growth long leaf pines probably 24" in diameter. Took the Kubota about 15 mins. to tear out each stump. The rest that were cut and not blown over I just had the stumps ground. Good luck

 

[Thomas]

Each stump will mostly be new challenge to remove,keep digging around the stump until roots broken or cut free.

 

[oosik]

I thin my pine stands every spring and chip them. Around 900 small( 1" to 6" on the butt ) pines. I leave about a 4" tall stump. It rots and turns to tan powder in about three years. The big 'ol ancient pines - up to 40" - will take all of ten years.

 

[Richard]

I don't recall that it was a pine tree but my wife's cousin next door had a tree he wanted dropped.

I dug on three sides of it, leaving the 4th side as sort of a 'hinge' to help prevent it falling back towards the house.

Otherwise, I simply dug on three sides, huffed, puffed and pushed it over.

Yeah, it was a bit nerve racking since "things happen" but it all went according to plan.

Since whole tree fell, it popped the root ball up.

Nice thing is, once I was done, I was done. HE was the one that cut the tree up & got rid of it. I got to MAKE the mess while he cleaned it. Doesn't get much better than that!

 

[Richard]

This is with an industrial backhoe with a 15 1/2 foot digging depth.

 

[Diggin It]

and just cutting off the stump underground with a battery powered sawzall but its worth asking here others experiences.

You'll burn the tool up that way. Don't ask me how I know. At least the battery ones. I use my electric one now even if I have to drag a generator out.

How many do you have and how fast do you need it done? There are hydraulic shears that cut at or below ground level. Not sure if they go on the FEL or the rear thee point.

 

[Jstpssng]

How big are the trees which you are talking about, and how many are there? You mentioned 4", but what are the biggest? That will have a lot of bearing on how well they come out. If you can cut them this year and let them set for a year or two they also will come out a lot easier.
Assuming that the B6100 is your existing tractor, how big is the one which you just ordered?
Lastly, what do you plan to do with the ground once the stumps are pulled, and how soon before you do it?
With patience and time you can do a lot more with smaller tractors than some people realize.

Edit: I saw on another thread that your new tractor is a L2501.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Heck, only 4"? A big enough Kubota, could just yank them out after cutting them off nice and high. I have yanked out hundreds of similarly sized hawthornes with a 42PTO HP , 2WD, non FEL, old school tractor. A good chain and a litle momentum. No sweat, and the hawthornes are tougher than the pines. At worst, they may break off before they tear out. But then you are no worse off than trying to cut them off.

 

[tradosaurus]

I have 42 acres of pine trees and my new L3301 will be used only for clearing brush and making trails.
I tried to pull out a 3 inch small tree and I couldn't get it out with my tractor.
When everything dries out I might rent a skid steer and a forestry cutter attachment from the local Kubota dealer. It's not cheap but if it would allow me to clear efficiently and then use my tractor for future forest maintenance.

 

[MIkeWard]

Im thinking of digging down one side ( once the tree is felled ) and just cutting off the stump underground with a battery powered sawzall but its worth asking here others experiences.

No Im not interested in hiring someone to come in and do it for me nor rent a piece of equipment at this point but thanks.

I have a Ford 1920 tractor with backhoe and have removed small trees 8 to 10 in diameter by digging on one side of the tree and cutting roots. You may have to move backhoe bucket away from tree where roots are small enough to cut or dig ,depending on power of your machine. With this done raise bucket up high and push tree directly above roots you cut and dug. Be careful about widowmakers.
The roots on the opposite side of the tree act as a hinge and guide the tree down. The weight of the whole tree also helps to break more of the remaining roots , like a big lever as it comes down. When tree is on ground push stump from the side to break the rest of the roots. ( or pull with backhoe) Whole stump should pop out most of the time.

Start with small trees till you feel like you know what you are doing. Try larger ones as you feel more confident. You are only cutting the roots on one side AWAY FROM THE DIRECTION IT WILL FALL!!!
The remaining roots will hold the tree up till you push

I've done this on much bigger trees with an excavator using the same technique. The entire root ball pop right out. With the excavator just grab the tree from the side of stump and yank it out of ground. Shake dirt off of stump.

This works so well because the uncut roots stabilize the tree and the entire weight of upper tree helps pull stump out for you

BE CAREFUL!!!

 

[Jstpssng]

I have 42 acres of pine trees and my new L3301 will be used only for clearing brush and making trails.
I tried to pull out a 3 inch small tree and I couldn't get it out with my tractor.
When everything dries out I might rent a skid steer and a forestry cutter attachment from the local Kubota dealer. It's not cheap but if it would allow me to clear efficiently and then use my tractor for future forest maintenance.

I've pulled 14" stumps with my old 275, and dug stumps with the Woods 750 on my 3301 which the loader wouldn't lift. The backhoe is a real game changer, when combined with a little patience.

I have a Ford 1920 tractor with backhoe and have removed small trees 8 to 10 in diameter by digging on one side of the tree and cutting roots. You may have to move backhoe bucket away from tree where roots are small enough to cut or dig ,depending on power of your machine. With this done raise bucket up high and push tree directly above roots you cut and dug. Be careful about widowmakers.
The roots on the opposite side of the tree act as a hinge and guide the tree down. The weight of the whole tree also helps to break more of the remaining roots , like a big lever as it comes down. When tree is on ground push stump from the side to break the rest of the roots. ( or pull with backhoe) Whole stump should pop out most of the time.

Start with small trees till you feel like you know what you are doing. Try larger ones as you feel more confident. You are only cutting the roots on one side AWAY FROM THE DIRECTION IT WILL FALL!!!
The remaining roots will hold the tree up till you push

I've dug a lot of stumps using the method which you describe. The only difference is that I cut the trees first, but do what works best. :thumbsup:

 

[sea2summit]

My MX5800 takes an average of 6 minutes per pine stump 8-14 diameter...ask me how I know.

6 acres, hundreds of the **** things when we moved into that house.

 

[sea2summit]

Sorry, no idea why those pics are all rotated crazy.

 

[oldballs]

I've done about 50 Pines of various species.....Austrian, White, and Scotch........all around 45 years of growth. I've hand dug the stumps, but decided to get a Stump Grinder. Here's some pics.
Cheers,
Mike

 

[Industrial Toys]

Looks like a nice hoe. How can that kid not be covered from head to toe in dirt? Was he washing soil out of the stumps?

My challenge was always that we only had a pre-commercial thinning. Not getting rid of everything. I think for that, I would have just brought in an 8. Push the stumpts into a pile and level everything out. Maybe I'm wrong as I never tried that.

 

[MIkeWard]

I don't recall that it was a pine tree but my wife's cousin next door had a tree he wanted dropped.

I dug on three sides of it, leaving the 4th side as sort of a 'hinge' to help prevent it falling back towards the house.

Otherwise, I simply dug on three sides, huffed, puffed and pushed it over.

Richard I was slowly typing while you posted this. It is exactly what I was talking about and with pics to boot
The excavator I used to do this did oak trees as easily as the pine and it had a higher reach up to push

 

[sea2summit]

Looks like a nice hoe. How can that kid not be covered from head to toe in dirt? Was he washing soil out of the stumps?

My challenge was always that we only had a pre-commercial thinning. Not getting rid of everything. I think for that, I would have just brought in an 8. Push the stumpts into a pile and level everything out. Maybe I'm wrong as I never tried that.

I think that was the very first stump, we also wore goggles after the first couple:duh: