DIY Land Clearing

[lead_dog]

Hello all, another newbie here. We farm in Georgia and just acquired an additional 54 acres next to us. It's all scrub pine and sweet gum. I think the land was clearcut in 1995 and nothing was done, so the pictures show what grew back. Basically nothing more than 3 inches or so and most much smaller.

My goal is to convert it to pasture as quickly as I can. Any decent trees I find I'll keep, but the rest has to be cleared. I'd like to purchase a piece of used equipment and do this myself. I know that experienced professionals can do this far better, but it's an experience I'd like to have.

My question is what single piece of equipment is best for this? I have a 90HP Kubota tractor with loader that can help for some parts, but should I be looking for a track loader or a dozer...or what?

Below are pictures of the new...mess!

Thanks for your advice.

<br>

 

[kthompson]

I have used box blade to push up trees that size with good success. Put blade right on the ground and backing up slowly lifting the box blade as it is pushing the tree. But much faster would be an excavator. I have a 5 ton one and it would pull that size tree right easy. With thumb on it easy to then turn and pile or load on trailer for hauling. There are the only methods I have really used. Dozer probably would do good but like the ability of excavator with thumb of piling or loading is nice. After you do the work, what would you then need the machine for? If you have ditches to keep cleaned out or need digging then the the excavator to me is even a better choice.

 

[Cooter Brown]

A dozer or a trackloader with a root rake will work best.

 

[QwikDraw]

Mulch it.

Root rake it to pop the stumps.

Mulch the rootballs.

Herbicide it.

Plant it.

Done.

So I would look at a used skidsteer with mulch head.

Or since you have a 90hp tractor you could look at getting a mulch attachment for it and a dozer for the raking....or....

 

[Egon]

Hire it out to someone with the proper equipment.

Getting equipment to do it yourself just may cost a Little more!

 

[Cooter Brown]

Here in Georgia there is a ton of good used heavy equipment available for good prices.
He will spend about 2500 an acre to get it turned into pasture land if he hires it out.
Mulching would be a big waste of time and money.Just push it all into piles and burn it.

 

[lead_dog]

I am seeing a lot of used equipment on the market which is part of what is prompting me. But regardless of whether it's a dozer or track loader, I'm sure there will be plenty of other work for us to do.

BTW, I should have mentioned that our farm is totally organic, so spraying herbicides, etc. is not an option. I'd like to just let the piles decompose once pushed up but to be honest, it's so think I think half the land would just be a big pile. So right now I'm thinking of just burning it, although I do have a forestry guy coming out next week for a sanity check.

It is seeming to me like a dozer is the way to go. True, a track loader could increase leverage by pushing higher on the tree, but the biggest tree I'll take down is 3-4 inches. Can't imagine a dozer can't handle that. The excavator/thumb sounds nice and would save topsoil, but seems to me like it would take longer and would also deprive me of the ability to smooth the land, which I expect I could do with a dozer.

 

[LBrown59]

Do what you can with the tractor .
Hire some body to do do the rest then maintain with your tractor.

 

[J35]

Excavator with a thumb you can pull them up like carrots, the drier the soil the cleaner the root ball will be and then use your tractor to push into piles and then more excavator to stack high let sit for 90 days then burn you will be left with white fine ash and no half burned stumps to bury.

You will end up with a lot cleaner job and less sweet gums in your pasture in the years to come.

Crawler would be my last choice.

good luck

 

[smitty9266]

your pictures do not show but.... if it only 3" stuff and you have a 90hp tractor I would get a brown tree cutter and start driving back wards.

Jeff

 

[Cooter Brown]

If it was cut in the last few years the top soil will be minimal anyway.
A dozer will work well but it will always have the achilles heel of not being able to load or dig.
An excavator will work but then you will still need to smooth the land.
Trackloader is kind of a jack of all trades.It does nothing great but everything well.
If you get a dozer get the largest you can afford.At least a D6/D7 size.
If you decide to push into piles it will take several years to rot.

You need to get it as smooth as possible so that it can be mowed.The sweet gums will come back and frequent mowing will eventually kill all of them unless you decide to spray then it will not matter.

 

[lead_dog]

Of course I have a bush hog, so my plan was to get the land cleared and smoothed and then plant. We intensively rotationally graze cattle and sheep so they should be able to keep the vegetation down, but if they can't, in comes the bush hog.

I hadn't heard of the brown tree cutter, but even if I had one, it seems I'd still have the problem of getting everything pushed into a big pile. So I'm back to the dozer or track loader.

Can I get the ground reasonably smooth with the track loader? Not doing a driveway here, just a pasture. The elevation fall from high point to low point over the entire 54 acres is only about 15 feet.

 

[Robbie Hegwood]

Where in Ga are you. This will help. I know someone who does this very thing and could help. I think your best bet is a little sub work and then you can do some. The problem is there is no one machine that can do it all properly.
There is a huge mulcher type attachment that will mulch and till it down into the ground 8-10" but the thing is expensive and takes 165 pto hp to run!

 

[tlbuser]

It's all scrub pine and sweet gum. I think the land was clearcut in 1995 and nothing was done, so the pictures show what grew back. Basically nothing more than 3 inches or so and most much smaller.

I'd like to purchase a piece of used equipment and do this myself. I know that experienced professionals can do this far better, but it's an experience I'd like to have.

My question is what single piece of equipment is best for this? I have a 90HP Kubota tractor with loader that can help

A cheaper option would be to get a root rake/grapple for your existing loader. You shouldn't have a problem moving 3" stuff roots and all. Then plow, disc, grade and seed. All can be done by you, on your time table.

 

[Cooter Brown]

A trackloader can make it as smooth as you want it.Think of it as just a skid steer on steroids.You can also buy a root rake bucket that will do a nice job.
The 953 Cat will work fine but if the area is really wet the narrow tracks can cause problems so go with a LGP Dozer.

 

[DIRTROAD]

Contact the Georgia Forestry Commision. They can have it sprayed to kill everything. Right now is the time of year to do this. Then they can come out and do a prescribed burn this Fall/Winter. This will get rid of the majority of the growth. Then it is much much easier to clean up what is left. They only charge a minimal amount for their services.

 

[scoutcub]

Push it, pile it, burn it. Dozer. With that small of trees, you can get away with a D20 or D21 Komatsu. More fun, cheaper to operate/buy/sell. I just started clearing land with my Komatsu D38......very nice!!!!
Good luck -

Frank

 

[jcummins]

A cheaper option would be to get a root rake/grapple for your existing loader. You shouldn't have a problem moving 3" stuff roots and all. Then plow, disc, grade and seed. All can be done by you, on your time table.

This is the way I would do it also, because of the cost. It will take some time.

 

[MarkV]

Contact the Georgia Forestry Commision. They can have it sprayed to kill everything. Right now is the time of year to do this. Then they can come out and do a prescribed burn this Fall/Winter. This will get rid of the majority of the growth. Then it is much much easier to clean up what is left. They only charge a minimal amount for their services.

Dirtroad has the right idea. I have worked with the Ga. Foresters and they have been very helpful. You do need to get on a list for the prescribed burn and they do it as there time allows. No guarantee they will get to you if it is a heavy fire year. First come first served off the list.

MarkV

 

[EddieWalker]

The size of the trees make a dozer a good choice because it can easiyl push them over and pile them up. The problem with a dozer is all the dirt you get mixed in with the trees while building your burn pile. Each tree will hold some amount and after a thousand or so of them, you can have several dozen yards worth of dirt in your burn pile!! Spreading it out after you burn is an option, but no burn is every 100%, so you always have a mess to deal with. I like to bury my burn pile debris after it's done, but a dozer isn't very good at this.

The excavator with a thumb is the ideal tool for taking trees out and piling them up in the burn pile. With the trees being so small, a mid size excavator should be fine. Some of them even have a dozer blade on the front of them. I don't know how well they work on that much land, but if you do a few acres at a time, it might be the right thing for you. The big drawback to an excavator is it's very slow at moving material from place to place.

Your tractor with a dedicated grapple on it would do this very nicely. I put one on my backhoe have increased the speed and quality of my land clearing by a huge margin. What I would have expected to do in a week, I'm getting done in two days with better results and less effort. While the grapply thumbs that attach to a bucket are fine for light use, they are not the same as a commercial grade grapple. Get the strongest one that you can find for your tractor!!!

It's a two part job, taking the trees out and getting them to the burn pile. In my opinion, a full sized loader backhoe with a grapple on the end is the best all around tool for this. Tires are way better then tracks for getting around, but tracks will go where tires cant. Tracks are also a nightmare to work on, while a tire goes flat on you and needs fixing all the time.

With the size of your tractor, I'd buy a mid sized excavator in the 80 hp range with a thumb. I'd put a grapple on the loader and buy a big disk to smooth out the land after it's cleared. After you disk it, you can drag it to make it good for mowing and maintaining it.

Good luck,
Eddie