Brush, what to do with it?

[Smokeydog]

We generate a tremendous amount of brush. 140 acre Tennessee foothills farm with about 40 acres cleared. 1/2 mile driveway thru the woods with miles of other trails. Much brush from keeping the roads, pastures and fields cleared.
Have done some burn piles. Getting harder with permits and increased area population.
Chipped some but the amount and size of what I do adds lots of work.

Property is a “hallar” and own most of the watershed. About halfway down the driveway I have a gully, rather large gully.
Big enough to push several house size brush piles into. Brush is moved via tractor grapples mostly. Most years 1-2 house size amounts are added. Some years 10-12. I had it piled up with trees thinking it’s going to take forever to rot. Amazed how fast it gets digested. The gully can take brush any time of the year. No fire worries. No chipping effort.
This gully is scar left by over cutting, over grazing and over use in the 300 year homestead history. Now hidden in mature forest again. It is now a valuable farm asset. Tree/brush recycler. 1/4 mile from were the trees are added the gully ends in low slope woods and pasture enriched by what was once waste.
Some of my northern farmer friends say this doesn’t work in cooler climates. Maybe they don’t have a proper gully. Maybe some gully scientists can enlighten us. I’m not so sure.

Never underestimate the value of a good gully.

 

[deezler]

Wish I had a gully. Most of the brush from clearing my homestead went into unsightly windrows. Where I could, I would drive it around a corner int he woods to a hidden pile. 5 years later much of it is gone, would like to clear it and smash it out, but I feel bad for the critters who have taken up residence within. I toss dirt over the fresh brush piles to make more solid berms where I can.

 

[Thomas]

Could always put brush in gully somewhat pile and once year burn it and what doesn't burn will rot.

 

[ddbackhoe]

We generate a tremendous amount of brush. 140 acre Tennessee foothills farm with about 40 acres cleared. 1/2 mile driveway thru the woods with miles of other trails. Much brush from keeping the roads, pastures and fields cleared.
Have done some burn piles. Getting harder with permits and increased area population.
Chipped some but the amount and size of what I do adds lots of work.

Property is a 塗allar and own most of the watershed. About halfway down the driveway I have a gully, rather large gully.
Big enough to push several house size brush piles into. Brush is moved via tractor grapples mostly. Most years 1-2 house size amounts are added. Some years 10-12. I had it piled up with trees thinking it痴 going to take forever to rot. Amazed how fast it gets digested. The gully can take brush any time of the year. No fire worries. No chipping effort.
This gully is scar left by over cutting, over grazing and over use in the 300 year homestead history. Now hidden in mature forest again. It is now a valuable farm asset. Tree/brush recycler. 1/4 mile from were the trees are added the gully ends in low slope woods and pasture enriched by what was once waste.
Some of my northern farmer friends say this doesn稚 work in cooler climates. Maybe they don稚 have a proper gully. Maybe some gully scientists can enlighten us. I知 not so sure.

Never underestimate the value of a good gully.

Maybe great, maybe not. It will really depend on whether or not you're in compliance with your states soil and erosion control plans. You may never get caught, but, it may end up with haul away, restoration and fines.

 

[oosik]

Twenty years ago I had my 80 acres selectively logged. Ended up with four - house-size piles of limbs. I was going to chip it all. However, when I went out to do the job - the quail had taken over the piles. The piles are now less than half the original size and still provide shelter for the quail.

 

[mred2]

I had about 30 acres cleared about 15 years ago. I went in with a dozer and piled the brush. 4 to 5 years later, I thought that I wanted to combine come of the piles. They were 80 percent dirt. I don't have a hole to put brush in. I am in the process of clearing more land. I leave the really large trees. Brush get piled to rot and the animals have a place to get for awhile. I also leave small areas that I don't mow for the animals. Wish I could get the quail to come back, but for now there are turkeys.

 

[Avenger]

I recently logged my property. The loggers left 4 HUGE piles of slash. Now that the piles are perfectly dry, I plan to burn these piles come snow. However...

I see the value in wood chips. I am saving my pennies for a 3pt chipper. I dont plan on chipping these piles, that would be too much. But maybe enough to cover the garden and flower beds with a few inches of wood chip mulch. Living in the forest, the amount of brush never ends. Even after I burn these huge piles, the chipper will always have something to eat.

 

[dalola]

I also subscribe to the "push it to a remote area" if you have the space. Makes great wildlife cover, and provides a good natural habitat.

 

[RalphVa]

We declared war on our invasives last fall and have them and fallen trees down and cut up now. Fallen tree parts and some brush got put into 2 or 3 gullies on our 8.5 acres. Shredded up some with the chipper/shredder and some other with the bush hog.

The cut trees/brush will slowly degrade over time and collapse in the gullies.

Last year, we had to remove about a 100 yard long debris pile made by the huge storm May, 2018. Could not actually get down there to do anything until about mid year last year. Some of that got hauled and placed along trails that I maintain and other pieces along the property line between us and the very territorial neighbor to the west. (Neighbor to the east: what line?) Did gobs of chipping/shredding. Wore out 2 sets of chipper blades and 1 chain saw on that pile. Wore out another chain saw on the downed trees. Got a 3rd now, Stihl 36v, saw.

Ralph

 

[LRover]

I too have some brush piles. Mine are in a couple different out-of-the-way locations on my farm. One of the piles forms an erosion dam in a series of old runoff gullies and it seems to have helped. I am constantly adding brush to the piles and they seem to rot down pretty quickly. A family of rabbits moved into one of the piles this spring so I have been careful about adding brush to that one.

 

[Diggin It]

I've done all of the above, plus burning some of it in the wood stove and shredding some of it to be worked into the ground as mulch.

 

[Smokeydog]

Termites will live in wood chips. I can get wood chips for free. I pay $35 for truck/trailer load of bark mulch from the sawmill for the flower beds. Bark lasts longer and less bugs near the house. Termites rarely get into bark. Nurseries sell the same stuff from the same place for 3-4x$ I’ll use sawdust or shavings for bedding in the barn. Careful where you place wood chips.

Tennessee conservation and agriculture folks are good about teaching the stewardship of farming and using brush piles to help wildlife and water supplies. Think their numbers are beginning to out number the farmers.

 

[Jchonline]

I had about 25 acres of beetle kill pine (dead standing or rotten/fallen) masticated 3 years ago. Most of the smaller pieces are decaying. The bigger chunks stick around. I may pile them up somewhere to let them rot. I have a WC88 chipper that we use on all newly cut wood. I just dont want to gunk it up with the 1/2 rotten and dead/dry stuff. Still have tons of work to do, but we plan on using the chips to prevent soil erosion and for trails.

 

[johncanfield]

I built about a 100' long windroe for our ranch critters to hide behind in winter, it also makes a good habitat for birds, etc. I also use brush and rocks I dig up for erosion control.

 

[747driver]

We live 60 miles south of you Smokeydog in the Cherokee National Forest ! We have 27 acres with most of it all forest. So yes we have numerous gullies in which i pile my brush and tree limbs. They are in remote areas that don't interfere with everyday living. It does all rot and decompose fairly quickly. I save enough of the smaller stuff and run it through my 3 pt chipper for trail mulch and flower beds.

 

[ruffdog]

A giant gully for brush.....Sounds like a big compost bin to me.:thumbsup:

 

[shooterdon]

Sold my chipper a month ago. Waste of time. Pile brush up in a remote are works for me. If the pile gets too big, burn it in the winter.

 

[Diggin It]

^^ I found that if I lay the smaller stuff out right, I can run over it with the field and brush mower. That makes it all but disappear. Fine chips, almost coarse sawdust-like.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I spend half my life working with brush. I use many methods - burn, pile, drag out of sight, chip, and let lay. Around the house and along the main drive I either drag into the woods out of sight, chip, or load it into the dump trailer then dump it in a pile somewhere. The brush and slash I create in the woods from cutting I just let lay unless it ends up on a tractor road. Then I clean the road and pile it for the critters nearby like this maybe.



I get a lot of slash cutting softwood and it takes longer to rot than hardwood. I usually lop it up a little.



Several years back I cut a small area of fir and took a picture from the same spot every year so I could see what happened. This is right after I cut.



After 2 years



After 4 years



After 6 years



It looks messy for a while but it is better ecologically to leave the slash allowing the nutrients to return to the soil, maintaining moisture, and helping reduce erosion. If you look at a natural woods you will see that mother nature is also very messy about the way she manages her woods.

gg

 

[BRMyers]

We have been taking back the farm for a little over a year. We have used the larger brush/logs to fill in washouts and help control run off. The smaller brush we were chipping, but that became to time consuming. So we dug out a large hole and started burning the small brush.