Digger Pine ideas

[safar]

I was looking for suggestions on what might be the best uses of fallen Digger Pines (California Foothill Pine)

We had about 5 (80-100' in height) pines fall during a recent rainstorm and probably another 3 to 5 that should be cut down and a few oaks.

1 - Wood Chips.
Chipping these as wood chips for mulch would likely be the most useful. I don't own a wood chipped, so that's an investment, but considering a Truck Load of mule in my area is $600-800 buying a wood chipper might be a useful investment as we have lots of trees to deal with annually.

Haven't ever used wood chipper, so not sure how time prohibitive it would be to trim the pines to a manageable size for a chipper and what good chipper options might be.

2 - Chainsaw mill for boards.
Have a couple great Chainsaw's, so could try and mill some boards for horse fencing. Not sure if that's a better use of time and effort.

Really just looking for some ideas.

 

[34Willys]

One of our most worthless trees, unless you're a treeing game being pursued by hounds through Chemise.
I had a friend who logged it and sent the logs to a plywood mill in Klamath Falls to make high end interior veneer.
We made some picnic tables out of 4x8 tops and they rotted very quickly. The wood is very brittle with almost no structural value, burns and smokes like a coal rollin' punk diesel truck driver, and sheds cones that are like tank mines.
But, they give a color and shape to the brushy hill sides that are unlike any other tree. Beautiful.
So, burn or chip. Don't waste your time milling for outdoor exposed projects.
Patrick

 

[GSVette]

I have a Victory 8H that I chip Ponderosa pine limbs and some trunks with. I’m running off an LS XR4155HC. At 6 or so inches at the butt I have to slow the feed down to chip. Haven’t run anything larger than that but would expect I could chip at the max just at a fairly slow feed.

Smaller stuff I can’t even keep up with it. Nice to have lots of chips around for mulch and trails.

 

[safar]

Thank's for the replies - I think a wood chipper makes the most sense and the mulch would definitely be useful.

Trying to research the different options now;
Reading different posts and trying to narrow down between WoodMaxx WM-8H, Victory WC-8H and Woodland WC88

 

[GSVette]

I ended up with the victory 8H and am very happy with it.

 

[ericm979]

I have a Woodmaxx 8H on a tractor with 32 PTO HP. It will chip hardwoods up to about 6" or so with the feed turned down all the way. I could use 10hp more when doing that. If you're using a BX23 it's not going to be able to chip much. An 80' high digger pine will have a lot of trunk that's larger diameter than an 8" chipper can take.

A small commercial style trailer chipper might be more like what you need. Decent used ones were stupid expensive in NorCal a few years ago and it's probably worse now. You might do better to rent one. If nothing else, to see what works and does not work for you.

Whatever chipper you use, get one with power feed instead of self-feeding. They're a lot safer.

Coast live oak makes good firewood. If it's died from SODS cut it down and process it immediately as SODS killed trees rot fast.

 

[safar]

Thanks - not a Bx23. I have a new MX6000 (57 hp PTO)

the trunk diameter was my other consideration- the diameter on some of these is atleast 20 inches so would involve first getting these sawed to manageable sizes - so might not always make practical sense, but it has to be cut down even if it to burn or dispose of them.

renting where I live is a real nuisance with hauling and availability, plus buying something albeit a little slower allows for flexibility to work a couple hours every now and then. I have a 5 acre empty piece of land where the trees can wait.

 

[ning]

I cut it up and either burn logs on a pile or leave it on the ground to rot (which barely takes any time).

The stuff has the most sap of any wood I've seen, and watch out for skull-splitting cones - if you see a squirrel run up one, don't go near that tree for a while because it's probably rigging to drop one on you (friend got a broken shoulder getting hit by one - near miss to the head!).

Another thing to consider about these is that they seem to die almost arbitrarily but always after growing at a severe angle (unlike most pine, they'll grow towards sun instead of just soldiering on vertically until they finally get some). This results in a super brittle dead tree that's got a 20-30° lean. If one grows anywhere near a structure make sure you cut it at first sign it's leaning towards anything you care about or you're going to be hiring a crane crew to cut it down eventually (if the wind doesn't beat you to it!).

(Pic: one that looked live and happy one year and was falling apart the next; it's leaning away from anything so I couldn't care less at this point and it's providing endless entertainment for a flock of woodpeckers.)

 

[ning]

Lives are in the balance!

 

[ericm979]

Digger pines and acreage, you're not in San Francisco.
If you're somewhere like the San Antonio Valley then yea, renting will be a huge pain. For those not from there, it's at least 45 min on very twisty roads to any civilization.

Chipping tree trunks in a smaller chipper is not going to be easy. If you cut and split the logs into firewood sized pieces it's difficult to get them into the chipper because they are short. I'm not sticking my arms in there! I can chip those by using my Woodmaxx's feed roller lift arm to pick up the roller and then tossing the piece in, but that gets old after more than a couple and would suck for a log's worth. You have to time it just right to let the roller down on the piece to drive it into the knives. You could cut 3-4' logs and split those which would make for safe lengths to feed the normal way, but that's not easy either.

With the size tractor you have I'd look at Woodmaxx's MX line with the hydrostatic feed. It's got some design improvements over the 8H, like a better feed drive and no open windows in the chute where branches can jam. It doesn't happen often but when it does it can take some work to get them out.