My third post: Best way to clear brush

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue">what is a drip torch? </font>

 

[jeffinsgf]

A drip torch looks like an oil can with a wick. It is a simple, stand-up way to start a fire in a field.

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="#666666">
A drip torch looks like an oil can with a wick. It is a simple, stand-up way to start a fire in a field.
jeffinsgf
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Thanks I've heard of one of them.
Where can I get one?
~~~~~~~~~ </font>

 

[1bush2hog]

Forestry Suppliers carries them

www.forestry-suppliers.com/search.asp?stext=DRIP%20TORCH

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue"> we have a 4pm burning law here at this time of year, so that means I can only burn for a couple of hours

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I don't think that's how it works.
Right now ours is ours 4 pm to 7 am. This does not mean that the fire has to be out by 7 am it means you can't start one between 7 am and 4 pm.

~~~~~~~~~It has nothing to do with how long a fire can burn only with when it can be started.

 

[meadowlarkponds]

IMO, the best way to clear brush is with a small dozer. Yes, it is more soil impacting, but the dozer can also repair the soil surface better than just about any other method.

I'm in the process of clearing 70 acres of brush. Honestly, I wouldn't consider even clearing 13 acres of it with a tractor and chain saw.

You can purchase a good used small dozer for $10 to $15k and resale it for virtually the same price. You can also rent one or hire the job done. In my area the going rate is around $225 to $250 per acre. The end result can be a beautiful pasture, clean fence rows, and all accomplished in a short amount of time. Good luck.

 

[Highbeam]

Been there, done that and sold the small dozer for a tractor, FEL, BH, and BB. I then divided the work into "too big for me" and "good seat time". A small dozer is not the best tool for land clearing or grubbing a forest into a lawn. It is better than anything else at certain things but mostly inappropriate. Of course, a lot depends on the ground you will be clearing and your ability to stack a clean pile of slash. If there was just one machine a land clearing contractor had to have it would be aproperly sized excavator with a grapple on his bucket.

 

[jeromet]

CLEAR UNDERBRUSH AS A SIDE JOB. I HAVE FOUR FORKS (MADE BY BUSH HOG)THAT BOLT INTO MY BUCKET THEY ARE ABOUT 1 1\2 W 3\4 THICK AND ABOUT 4 FEET LONG, THERY ARE CALLED MANURE FORKS. YOU CAN PICK UP WHOLE TREES AS LONG AS YOU BALANCE THEM. THEY HAVE ONE HOLE IN THE BACK AND YOU CLAMP THE FRONT. THE ARE LIKE T1 STEEL SO DONT BURN OR DRILL ON THEM THEY WILL BRAKE.

L3410DT W/KUBOTA LOADER

 

[jtfx6552]

I have about the same arrangement you describe, about 8 acres pasture, 10 acres woods.

I just cleared some of the woods for a bigger back yard ( house is centered in the woods). i didn't want to take down any big tress, but there was a lot of brush and saplings in there to be removed.

I did all the clearing with FEL and a landscape rake.The only time I needed the chain saw as for the vines hanging from the trees i didn't want to damage.

I'm not sure how big your tractor is, but my Deere 4120 (about 3700) lbs with R4's, woukld make quick work of small trees.

I just raised the loader bucket up high for good leverage, and slowly pushed them over, being real careful not to store a lot of energy in a bent over tree. Sometimes I had to hit them from more than one side, sometimes digging the loader in low to flip the root ball out. Being new to tractoring I am amazed what a FEL can do.

For small bushes and growth I got real good at just hitting them right where they came out of the ground with the edge of the fel and pulled them right out, roots and all.

I found having the bucket level indicator set right is a key, then the bucket can be set and pushed along right above or right below ground level, whatever works best for the spot you are in.

i used the landscape rake for clean up and "blending". I removed two of three tines because it was pulling too much dirt. After i got the big stuff out of the way, I put all the tines back, set it to a more agressive angle and it really cleaned up the land nice.

As i said, i am amazed what a tool an FEL is. It can really wreak some havoc, and i am sure many people have been hurt running a tractor with one. During the job, there were many times were if I wasn't careful, very bad things could have happened.

The man seat pucker incident i encountered with this job was due to the landsacpe rake. How can a lanscape rake be dangerous? Well i was pulling debris to a cenral location, attempting to make straight passes and get as close a possible to the trees i was passing so as to not leave a lot of junk around the trunks. I went by a small tree a little too close. The tree was small enough that the tractor and rake pulled it right down. If the tractor didn't have ROPS, that tree would have crushed my skull. Be carefull out there!

My big question is what to do with my pile of junk? The house is on a well, so I don't have a lot of water if I needed it. The pile is in the middle of the woods somewhat near the house. I would be too nervous about burning it.

i was thinking of renting something to dig a hole to bury it. It would need to be a big hole, and I guess I 'd need to leave a mound to account for settlement. The mound doesn't sound too attractive either, and i really don't have a feel for how much and how long it would take to settle.

Today I limed, fertilized and seeded. I'm not looking for a golf course lawn or anything, just decent coverage. Being that this area will be somewhat shaded, do I need to cover with straw? I'm in south central, PA.

JT

 

[Highbeam]

"My big question is what to do with my pile of junk? The house is on a well, so I don't have a lot of water if I needed it. The pile is in the middle of the woods somewhat near the house. I would be too nervous about burning it."

Good question. I spent Saturday and part of Sunday chipping away at my slash pile by burning. A tractor is an effective fire stacker. I start a fire and feed it with the tractor to keep the fire at a reasonable size. Not buring all at once like the pros. It is amazing how much slash comes out of a small area of woods. I have found it much better to mow everything small enough to be mowed with the brush hog and then stack the logs in a nice neat pile to be used for firewood or for another fire someday. This reduces the pile considerably.

My pile is down to 90'x30' by 8' tall. I knocked the length down 20 feet to 90' after a weekend's burn. I actually push small heaps into the burning fire so as not to light off the whole 90'. You don't need water, you need a controlled burn that is reasonably small and not under a tree.

 

[Louisiana_John]

Just like Medowlarkponds said this is what a small dozer is great for. Use with out the rake for bigger stuff. Small stuff use the rake. Then sweep with the rake. Dress up with the dozer rake less. Do the last steep on your own with the tractor. If you don't have alot hire it done.
Here is a pic of my Brush Tool.
John
[image]

 

[Highbeam]

That just looks mean.

 

[FL4400]

This is what I have been using to clear brush and knock down the trees I need out of the way. It was built by Lynn's Welding out of Perry, FL.

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

I do like the dozer with rake, and that's a nice-looking rake on FL's 4400. That's not going to break anytime soon!

I've been following this thread for quite a while, and notice that nobody has mentioned (I don't think) a brush grapple. While some of the other methods would be faster, like that monster shredder, or a dozer, or tree shears, they're obviously very pricey and would require big machines and/or lots of hydraulic flow.

For smaller-scale brush-handling and clearing, a brush grapple and hand-cutting (with a chain saw or clearing saw) isn't a bad way to go. There are a heck of a lot of good grapples out there that don't cost a fortune ($1500-$3000) and do a heck of a lot of work. Bradco, Anbo, WR Long, Pirhana and Addington make good grapples, to name a few. WR Long has one of the best hydraulic solenoid and loader control setups I've seen.

A search on the word "grapple" will give you more than you can read in a month; lots of good stuff on this site about them.

I have the Bradco with the WR Long controls and it sure makes life easy when dealing with brush.

John

 

[miltrade]

Just as an update, I have been working on this using a combination of chainsaw, pulling chains, forklift attachment, and front end loader. I venture in knock over what I can with the FEL, then jump off and cut down the larger stuff with the chainsaw, then go in to load up the forklift attachment and carry it out. It's slow work, but short of putting out several thousand dollars in new equipment, I have to make do like this. I can tell you that I am looking more closely at purchasing a PTO wood chipper as it would really be a lot easier to simply chip and grind all of the branches and smaller saplings etc. As it is, I am having to try to pick them up with the forklift and put them on burnpiles. I haven't burned anything but I have several piles. I am going to wait until April 15th, when we can once again burn all day instead of just after 4pm.

 

[Highbeam]

My more recent land clearing adventures in areas with dense underbrush was done by equipping the tractor with the brush hog and FEL/toothbar.

I first go in and push over smaller brush and saplings up to about 3 inches around the outer edge and then back in with the brush hog and chop/shred it all up. Then turn around and do it again. I work around larger trees, logs on the ground, and other non-choppable obstacles until I've done a good area of underbrush chopping. Then I drop the mower (if needed), cut down trees that must go, and drag out the big stuff into clean piles to be burnt someday maybe. The piles are much, much smaller if all of the choppable small stuff is left on the forest floor in shreds. The toothbar allows me to rake humps in the soil into driveable surface and the mower actually dips into the dirt to act as a land leveler and shallow tiller.

I have done about 2 acres this way leaving mature trees and the shreddings on the ground really makes a parklike environment. I also have grown fond of limbing the mature trees as high as I can with the chainsaw from the ground and shredding those up. The brush hog is a marvelous tool.