Clearing steep, wooded hillsides, PT 1850 or what?

[MikeOConnor]

Hi gang -- long-time lurker Mike here. But I've got a puzzler that I bet some of you can help out with. Marcie and I have a farm in western Wisconsin that we are restoring back to native habitat. You know, prairies, wetlands, savanna.

The puzzler can be seen in these pictures of a remant prairie. See all those wooded hillsides? Our goal is to clear off almost all of the trees and brush with the aim of restoring the savanna plants that were there before the land was grazed and logged over the last 150 years or so. We're making darn good progress on the prairies and wetlands, but the woods are tough.

Since I've got about 150 acres of this wooded hillside stuff, I'm contemplating Cool Mechanical Gizmos that could help with the job. I've got a Kubota M6800 that does a pretty good job until he gets up to about a 25-30-degree slope, then he complains (yep, fluid in the tires, ROPS, seatbelt, caution, all that stuff).

Unfortunately, my wooded hills are more like 35-45 degree slopes (yep, approaching 100% grade) -- so I'm looking for something that can handle more slope than the 'Bota.

The woods have brush (which i could see taking out with a brush mower), lots of little 2-8 inch trees (which a tree shear would work on) and a fair number of bigger trees that I figure we have to fell with a chain saw but which would be nice to "forward" out of there with a grapple bucket.

A big-deal criteria (in addition to safety on the slope) is to keep ground disturbance at a minimum so we don't stir up a bunch of weeds as we clear the woody stuff off.

I rented a tracked skidsteer a week or so ago, but he's worse on the slopes than the tractor, so he got sent back. I'm very interested in the Power-Trac 1850 slope mower as an example of something that's really designed for hard work on steep hills.

My concern about that gizmo is ground clearance -- these hills of mine have some rough patches and I'm wondering whether the Power-Trac would get hung up.

The reason for this post in the "general" area rather than the PT forum is my interest in people's experiences and ideas for how to tackle a job like this, the approach you'd take, and the eequipment you'd use. I figure no matter what, I've got about a 10 year job in front of me here. <grin>

Thanks in advance for your ideas and thoughts.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Wow, you have some beautiful land. I am impressed that you are trying to put it back they way it was a couple hundred years ago. It's very hard to get rid of the non-native species etc.

Seems like even if you clear the hills that you won't be able to hold back the erosion long enough to get prarie grasses established, but you sound like you know what you're doing. I sure wish you the best of luck and I'm looking forward to some before and after pictures.

As for machinery on slopes such as yours, this may sound very strange, but have you considered horses or oxen? Just a thought.

Cliff

 

[gabby]

Hey Mike,
How will you keep the hillsides from sprouting back with suckers from all the trees and bushes you'll be taking out? I think you have as big a challenge in long term maintenance of the slopes as in the initial clearing.

Reminds me of Interstate 20 that runs through this area. DOT has spent a couple of years having contractors log the grown up trees off the slopes, followed by chewing up all the debris and stumps with monster track hoes with huge engines designed specifically to power the hydraulic motors in their huge grinding heads on the end of the hoe arm. They just lower the thing down on the stumps and limbs and it grinds them up into chips and they just leave it there to rot. Now the sprouts are coming back with a vengeance and they are having to herbicide them.

I would give serious thought to leaving most of the slopes alone because you're about to bite off a big hunk of dangerous work.

Gabby

 

[Henro]

Mike,

I would read and consider Gabby's advice more than twice!

First thought I had when reading your post was "How young is this guy???"

And say you get all your land back to original...what will border it? Probably more of those tree covered hills anyway.

Compromise may be the real solution. Make the reasonable, easy to work(relatively) slopes original, and leave the steep dangerous slopes as they are today.

Being a kind of natural idealist, I can identify with what you wish to do. But if something bad would happen and you no longer walk on the planet as the result, what have you gained?

Guess my practical side is showing. I have no desire to climb Mt. Everest either...would rather sit out back by the fire enjoying the stars and moon, knowing tomorrow chances are that I will be able to do the same thing.

Those slopes are DANGEROUS, on any machine really.

Think twice, live long.

In my opinion Gabby hit the nail on the head... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[RoyJackson]

I agree with Gabby...I'd leave most the slopes alone, except for field mowing.

As far as a tractor...I wonder if a Unimog would do the job?

 

[beenthere]

I can only see manual labor with chainsaw and, maybe as suggested, horses or mules if you want to pack it out.

You are among some of my neighbors who also have this idea of returning the land back to some apparent oak savanah, by removing brush that has invaded the hills. One neighbor, only with a lot of our tax dollars, had crews in for a couple years cutting brush and cedar. Now there are some new prairie plants and flowers that have sprung up, but I too, wonder how in the world we can afford to pay to have this site maintained? The neighbor can't possibly do it by himself.
Maybe people out of work can be put to work brushing this type of land (prisoners maybe?). Used to be the farmers would graze it, after burning it. That would keep the brush down.
But to me, there is not equipment (although there are some hill-climbing tree logging machines that might do it) readily available that would be affordable to do it, so the only way is manual labor.
Along the same line, we see old railroad beds turned into hiking and biking trails. However there is no money to keep after the heavy brush that turns to shrubs and then to trees, so the trails are now just tunnels of brush and trees. No breeze, no view, etc. And now, there are ambitious plans to make Ice-age trails that wind around through the country side. They too will end up being just tunnels through the trees for walking or hiking paths. Lots of ambitions but no good plan for maintenance, IMO. If we can't maintain it, why do we do it?
My deep apologies if this sounds cynical, and I don't mean to belittle what you have ambitions to do. What you want to do is fine with me. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Mike, on a totally different scale, I looked at the PT equipment, but it was for use on a small lot compared to what you have. So I looked at the smaller PT equipment, and I chose not to buy it, but mostly because I really wanted the best mower, not the best most versatile machine.

From what I see in your pictures, no matter how good your equipment, you need to be careful. That said, PT makes amazing stuff and it will probably do what you want to do, at least on many of your slopes, but perhaps nothing should go on the really steep & rough spots.

As for ground clearance, from what I can tell, articulated tractors have less ground clearance (as measured with a simple ruler), but use the articulation & oscillation capabilities of their frames in a different way than a rigid frame tractor does, because of the vertical oscillation capabilities the tractors have more usable clearance than they seem to have. My Ventrac sits very low to the ground but has never gotten hung up on anything yet. I was concerned about ground clearance, until I tried one.

 

[Egon]

Congradulations on your plans. I have a very small area planted to tall and short grass prairie. Deer cleaned up on most of the flowers though. Couple more years And I'll have a few more acres ready to plant.

As to clearing brush perhaps a small cat is what you are looking at. Contour strip clearing starting from the top down over a period of years may to help prevent erosion.

Do you have State sponsored information available?

Harvesting of seeds could be a lucrative sideline.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[MikeOConnor]

Thanks for the speedy responses. Here's a little more info.

Regarding the trees that throw up suckers; most species don't do that -- but there are two approaches for those that do. Some (like Aspen for example) grow in "clones" and you have to kill the whole clone before you fell, otherwise they'll re-sprout. We girdle all the trees in the clone, leave 'em for a year and then drop 'em. Girdling kills them slowly enough that they don't realize they're under attack and send up other shoots. Others (like Sumac or Buckthorn) you can paint the stumps with herbicide after felling -- we find that high-concentration Tordon works pretty well.

We also burn and mow pretty frequently, which stimulates the native stuff and keeps the invaders under control because they're not adapted to that kind of stress. That's another reason I want a machine that's comfortable on those hills -- I'll be over them 3 or 4 times with the mower before the native stuff is really established

Another thing that brings back weeds is what I mentioned in the first post -- ground disturbance. That's part of why the freeway lads had so much trouble. This is *gentle* work -- come rippin' across there with a D-8 Cat and you've got yourself a problem. But we've been clearing these hills for years and what comes back for us is the native plants that are already there -- they're just stunted by all the weed trees and brush that have popped up. Once the native stuff is re-established, it crowdes out the exotic invaders. My goal with the Cool Machinery is to speed this process up.

Regarding the slope -- folks have been clearing **much** steeper slopes than these for a long time. The most extreme examples are the folks that use cable logging rigs to bring the stuff downslope -- the problem is that one of those rigs starts out at about a half a million bux and I'm not going to get that past the VP of Finance. <grin>

Regarding the overall doom and gloom about working on slopes -- *any* environment is dangerous if you're working beyond the design limits of your gear. That's why I'm looking at the PT 1850 -- it's rated on 45-degree slopes, which is less than what I've got.

Folks around here have used horses and stuff, but I don't want to hassle with animals. I look at UniMogs longingly (they are rated on slopes up to 42 degrees, which would work for me). Roy, have you ever priced 'em? I get the impression that they're darn spendy bought new -- and a used one strikes me as a bit more of a mechanical project than I want to tackle.

As to the overall sanity of trying to take 400 acres back to the way it was before? Ah well, some things have no explaination. <grin>

Thanks for the comments, keep 'em coming. But let's focus on things that work, not on how dangerous it would be with inappropriate equipment. I agree -- that's why the 'Bota hasn't gone up there.

 

[MikeOConnor]

Yikes! Responses came so fast that a few more came in while I was typing. So here's a little more more-info.

Regarding maintenance -- one of the beauties of a good restoration is that it pretty much maintains itself once it's established. Takes some fooling around to get it going, but it tapers off after a few years. We've done almost 100 acres and the first 50 are pretty much on their own. We'll burn every few years, but that's about it. Oh, I guess that's another good reason for a machine that can navigate these hills -- Mike's Pretty Good Fire Hillside Fire Department.

It's only the two of us working on this project and, while we're definitely nutcases, it's still feeling pretty manageable. We have a conservation easement on this land, so it's going to be owned by similar nutcases in the future too.

Interestingly, if you drive the Interstates in Iowa, more and more you're seeing restored native plants beside the highways -- and they're doing that because it's **cheaper** to maintain than the usual mowed stuff you see. Partly because it doesn't need as much mechanical and chemical maintenance, and partly because it cuts down on the cost of snow plowing.

Regarding the money to do the restoration -- yep, it's expensive. It's mostly our money, although we got a couple little grants, mostly paying for seed. The maintenance is also feeling like it's manageable financially.

Bob, your comments about ground clearance are what I'm really looking for -- real-world experience with those low articulated tractors like your experience with the Ventrac. Anybody else had similar experiences with those gizmos on hillsides?

Regarding seed-harvesting -- yes!! Although we mostly harvest the seed to turn around and use it on our own land, eventually we may start selling some. Some of the native stuff sells for $100's of dollars **an ounce**, kids.

Regarding erosion -- there are already plants in the understory, we're just liberating them. These hillsides pretty much stay put after we're done -- actually they're a lot less erodable in some cases.

There. I'll post this real quick before any more replies come in...