Best way to clear unwanted trees from pasture

[Ed27]

P.S. - Make sure you have a funnel with a long flexible spout, because the oil fill hole is behind the base of the FEL arm. Zip tying the funnel to the FEL arm is handy too, especially if you are pouring oil from a 2.5 gallon jug.

 

[jjp8182]

Sounds like you got luckier than I did ... I had one drain plug come of with the washer stuck to it, the other stuck to the oil pan until about half the oil had drain out before coming loose and falling into the pan of used oil. Fortunately I was using some deep cafeteria-style food warming pans as oil catch pans so it wasn't too hard to retrieve the washer.

 

[Tennsawdust]

Sounds like you are making good progress on the clearing. Those Bradford pear stumps should rot away pretty quickly.

 

[Ed27]

Sounds like you are making good progress on the clearing. Those Bradford pear stumps should rot away pretty quickly.

Thanks. From your lips to God's ear! We are cutting at ground level and painting all the stumps with Garlon 3A herbicide to keep them from growing back. We know the herbicide is good, but occasionally my wife and I will look at each other and say, "This stuff better work!"

 

[Ed27]

Before


After cutting down 571 Bradford Pear trees and stacking them in burn piles. Many, many more to go!

 

[Ponderwood]

I cut em off as close to the ground as I can, paint em orange, and when I have 20 -50 to do, got to the local rental place and get a grinder. They let me pick it up Friday at 330Pm and return it Monday at 8am, no hour meter so I pay for one day. ($300) It's a Vermeer that drives it's self and makes the work pretty easy. Saves me time and wear and tear on my equipment.

 

[searcyfarms]

an excavator and dozer with a good operator would have been done in a week with no stumps to deal with - btdt

 

[Ed27]

an excavator and dozer with a good operator would have been done in a week with no stumps to deal with - btdt

True, and also cost me a fortune and tear up my pasture.

 

[goeduck]

True, and also cost me a fortune and tear up my pasture.

Agree, you have done a nice job! And you have a NICE piece of property there :thumbsup:

 

[Ed27]

Agree, you have done a nice job! And you have a NICE piece of property there :thumbsup:

Thanks! The neighboring pastures look good, so I think this one will be nice too after some work.

 

[showcattle]

View attachment 622594
Before

View attachment 622595
After cutting down 571 Bradford Pear trees and stacking them in burn piles. Many, many more to go!

I'm impressed! Looks great!

 

[Ford850]

View attachment 622594
Before

View attachment 622595
After cutting down 571 Bradford Pear trees and stacking them in burn piles. Many, many more to go!

I'm not sure if I'm more impressed that you have cut so many, or that you counted them!
:confused3: :thumbsup:

 

[Ed27]

I'm not sure if I'm more impressed that you have cut so many, or that you counted them!
:confused3: :thumbsup:

Lol, my wife is the counter, but her counting method is bad! If a mature Bradford Pear tree has never been bush hogged when it was small, it will have a single trunk in the ground. If a BP tree was previously bush hogged when it was little and now it looks like one large mature tree, it is actually 5-10 trunks that resprouted from roots in one spot and looks like a single tree. My wife says, if it looks like a single tree, I count it as one. I say, what the heck, I just sawed through 5 things! Nope, that's one. So, we have cut 571 BP trees by that counting method. We don't bushhog ANY of them. We saw down trees that are 6' tall with a 1" trunk, to the biggest ones that are about 40' tall with a 12" trunk (which is at max capacity for the saw. We have also cut many, many other trees, but have not counted them - mainly 1-2" diameter oak trees growing near water sources. The majority of trees, however, are those darn BP trees!

 

[nyone]

Thats a nice looking lot even with the trees on it. I hope your planing on leaving some?

Get oil by the 5gal bucket. Its only a mattet of time before you need to change the oil again. Also if i have a piece of equipment that takes the same oil filter as another i just buy a case, 12.

 

[Ed27]

Thats a nice looking lot even with the trees on it. I hope your planing on leaving some?

Get oil by the 5gal bucket. Its only a mattet of time before you need to change the oil again. Also if i have a piece of equipment that takes the same oil filter as another i just buy a case, 12.

If you look at the after picture in post #185 you will see a large stand (about 15 acres) of mature tress in the 1:00 o'clock position in the photo. Those mature trees (not Bradford Pears) have never been touched and they will all stay - these trees are in a big triangle with a road one one side and two creeks on the other two sides. The trees in the pasture are Bradford Pears and all must go!

 

[Ford850]

Ed27, Can you take a couple pictures of the 'stump' left behind after cutting the tree, or after re-cutting it lower (if you are)? How does it feel when you drive over them with your tractor afterwards?

 

[Ed27]

Ed27, Can you take a couple pictures of the 'stump' left behind after cutting the tree, or after re-cutting it lower (if you are)? How does it feel when you drive over them with your tractor afterwards?

When I'm out there this weekend I'll try to remember to get a picture. If you walked on the cut stumps with your eyes closed you would not know it. The stumps are literally at or slightly below ground level. The saw blade is resting on the dirt when it is cutting the tree.

 

[jjp8182]

Lol, my wife is the counter, but her counting method is bad! If a mature Bradford Pear tree has never been bush hogged when it was small, it will have a single trunk in the ground. If a BP tree was previously bush hogged when it was little and now it looks like one large mature tree, it is actually 5-10 trunks that resprouted from roots in one spot and looks like a single tree. My wife says, if it looks like a single tree, I count it as one. I say, what the heck, I just sawed through 5 things! Nope, that's one. So, we have cut 571 BP trees by that counting method. We don't bushhog ANY of them. We saw down trees that are 6' tall with a 1" trunk, to the biggest ones that are about 40' tall with a 12" trunk (which is at max capacity for the saw. We have also cut many, many other trees, but have not counted them - mainly 1-2" diameter oak trees growing near water sources. The majority of trees, however, are those darn BP trees!

Definitely some impressive progress, made even more so given the method of counting and the size of the largest Bradfords being removed.

 

[Ed27]

Definitely some impressive progress, made even more so given the method of counting and the size of the largest Bradfords being removed.

Thanks! My wife and I both work full time, so it will still be awhile until we are done. Unfortunately, the part you cannot see in the photos, the part of the property that extends past the bottom of the photo, is where the trees are the densest!

 

[Ed27]

Ed27, Can you take a couple pictures of the 'stump' left behind after cutting the tree, or after re-cutting it lower (if you are)? How does it feel when you drive over them with your tractor afterwards?