What size dozer for this land clearing job?

   / What size dozer for this land clearing job? #11  
I would agree. Unless you grind it several times, the large pieces would take a while to “return back to the soil”. WW used a loader and cleaned up the larger pieces from this project last spring.

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   / What size dozer for this land clearing job? #12  
D6 sized cat or bigger with a root rake. It would be advantageous to the operator if there was a proper cage on the cat to protect the operator from tree material that comes back.

The dozer can also windrow/pile the debris. Follow up with a dozer pulled breaking disk.

There have been many sections of land cleared this way.
 
   / What size dozer for this land clearing job? #13  
I have a Case 1550 dozer that's similar in size to a Cat D6 at 170 hp. If the soil still has some moisture in it, I can pop out 12 inch trees fairly quickly. If the soil is dry and hard, it tends to break the trees off, or I just spin my tracks and end up digging them out. Smaller stuff is very time consuming and difficult to keep clear of where you are working. If you do not keep the area clear, those little trees will work their way into the engine and tear something off. Once you get everything down, then getting it to the burn pile is where the dozer really sucks. I had a brush rake that cut down on how much dirt was pushed into the pile, but the farther you go, the more dirt the brush and trees pick up.

I also have a 555E 2wd backhoe. I found that it is much faster at taking out trees then the dozer. I put a grapple on the front end and that allows me to pick up the trees, and carry them to the burn pile. This is super clean, fast and easy.

For taking out trees, and excavator is by far the best machine to do this. For what you showed in the picture, probably a 6 tone machine or bigger with a thumb would be ideal. Excavators are not great at carrying trees to the burn pile. They are just too slow.

If you do not want the roots out of the ground, and you do not want to have a burn pile, then grinding them up is by far your best option.

A dozer would be good for cleaning up everything after all the trees are out of the ground.
 
 
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