When Mother Nature takes back the land

[Red Horse]

Well 25 years ago I built my house on a piece of land that had been planted every year-most recent crop was pumpkins. Well I finally came to the conclusion that if I had to find my well in a hurry I could not as the amount of cover that has grown back was very heavy. We helped the situation along by planting a good number of spruce and concolor fur seedlings but the scrub brush that had grown in was unreal. I came to the realization that at some point my submersible pump would give out and did I want to spend five hours on some cold morning (with my luck) trying to find it.

So this morning I put the Wildkat grapple on the Deere and attacked the problem.

First shot shows the "woods" in front of my house. Again 25 years ago this was open field all the way to the town road. Rest of the shots are "in progress".

Amazing how quick this can happen-and I should ad most of this growth was in last 10 years.

 

[dave1949]

Trees versus grasses, trees win every time in New England. :laughing:

That was a good project that you will benefit from sooner or later.

 

[wngsprd]

I don't have a grapple, so am not as familiar with using them for clearing...did you do all that with the grapple, or did you use a chainsaw, too, etc? The change is amazing.
Thanks,
Billy

 

[CobyRupert]

Now write the location down! (Use whatever: GPS coordinates, make a map with distances, angles, references to buildings, position of the sun on the vernal equinox, whatever.) Future you (in another 10 years) or next owners will thank you.
Same for septic, buried lines, etc..
Like genealogy, unless it gets written down it gets forgotten. (And buried!)

 

[oosik]

Likewise, I'm amazed. I don't get that amount of undergrowth/regrowth around here in 100 years. Areas where the original homesteaders - in 1892 - cleared and opened fields are still - open fields. I have one small area where in 1921 some sort of fire - perhaps wildfire, ?? - burned the undergrowth and, to this day, it has not grown back and you can still find the burned remains of brush & small trees in this area. "Things" happen very slowly around here.

 

[Red Horse]

Guys,

I used a Stihl tree trimmer to cut some some stuff on edges of cut where I was worried about breaking cab glass or ripping off the "12 buck" rearview mirrors I made-so much for JD's mega buck mirrors!. My grapple is the Wildkat 48" Economy job. I bought it when they first started making them and paid under 700 delivered from NC. Can't beat the value-but that is another story. (wngsprd-be perfect size for your machine)

And CR, hear you on writing it down- I have my septic system all triangulated but this thing sticks out of ground 2' and for sure I will be mowing area hereafter.

Dave, Oosik, I guess this isjust typical of New England- You lookat all the stone walls in the woods and guess what-these weren't "woods" a hundred years ago-they were cultivated land

I also have a ton of Locust trees some of which are close to 15-20" in diameter-in 25 years! Like weeds! at least it is excellent firewood

 

[Weedy Fields]

I let some areas of my current location go back to nature. And plan on doing just about all of the next place I get.
I did plant about 2000 White Pines and White Cedars. I also planted some Walnuts and Butternuts. I own a 3 acre chunk that was all grass and it is still mostly grass. But some of the trees I planted are now 20-30 ft tall and the walnuts are dropping nuts which will speed up the demise of the grasses. I have noticed that when planting trees in grass it takes about 5 years for the trees to get established then watch-out, they start taking off.
I my area of the country before man was here the dominate ecosystem was "savanna". Areas of large trees with grasses growing around them. These are almost complete gone due to man.
Man suppressed the one thing that made savannas possible, fire.
The growing conditions are better in the eastern U.S. than most of the western U.S. Not all areas but most. Land cleared around here 100 years ago if left alone would be woodlot now. Some areas are faster at it rather than others, its all about the soil.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Yes indeed, if you don't stay on top of it, Mother Nature will reclaim an area pretty fast. She is tireless and works 24-7 so you do have to be diligent in your efforts to stay ahead of her. The soil in Arkansas is pretty poor, at least where I live, but weeds and trees especially sweetgum trees will grow profusely if left even for a few years. When we bought our farm, it has laid fallow for several years and weeds and small trees were higher than the tractor. A Sweet gum thicket had just about claimed a couple of acres or so next to a creek. It was so thick that the trees were competing for sunlight and some areas were too close to walk between the trees. I cut with saw, weed eater with saw blade, pulled them out with chain, bush hogged when possible, dug up with FEL etc a little at a time to reclaim the area for a couple of years prior to getting my backhoe.
The rest of the farm was about what Red Horse was experiencing and was handled with mostly the bush hogs. It took 2-3 years to kill off the weeds that were overtaking the grass but mowing them down 2-3 times a year finally got the grass to growing where previously only tall weeds lived.
With the backhoe, I did in one day more than I had been able to do in 2 years by hand and FEL.
Since I had removed the 2" and smaller stuff over the years by hand and pull chain, I could back in with the backhoe and selectively thin the larger ones with the tractor to allow shade for cows but not so much that the trees suffered each other for sun.
A grapple would have been a nice addition, but the backhoe with hydraulic thumb was a close second for piling the downed trees. A grapple would have been nice to pick up the piles and transport to a central burn pile, but the FEL was able to just skid them along as far as I needed to go which wasn't all that far.

Red Horse did a very good job of clean up and it looks good now.

 

[westcliffe01]

For rapid growth areas (and I would include SE Michigan in that) I think the solution is to brush hog at least twice a year. One can leave individual trees but need to keep the brush down and from getting woody enough that heavy equipment is needed. Some of the invasive species like Autumn Olive can take over a hay field yard by yard and be virtually impenetrable. Thin wiry stems (and thousands of them) make for exceedingly difficult removal if allowed to become established. They also provide great cover for predators to lay in wait for lambs where you can neither see them, nor get to them..

 

[SPIKER]

Today was closing day (2000) on my farm when I closed there were 10 acres (+/-) of mature woods of the 22(+/-) total acres. Today I would say I have 14 acres of good woods and 5 acres of 20' + high trees. I planted a LOT of them and mother nature did a lot too. (I hate mowing wastes time and fuel as well as wear and tear on equipment.) What I have left un-planted in trees is yard for parking, septic and I mow in between the orchard I planted. That is maybe 4 acres of mowed/trails of that 2~3 are what could be called Farm Yard while rest is brush hogged or trails...

The upper field (was corn year prior to me buying it is 4 acres) received 2000+ Sugar Maple and a good bit of White Pine, Spruce (white & Blue) & has a lot of Oak (Red & White) with a good number of Hickory all in the 15foot plus high range now... I have a trail around outside (almost over grown and one I brush hogged thru it.) There are a good number of Sugar Maples and I have made some syrup 3 or 4 times in the 2 to 5 gallon range for myself... 10 more years I may be able to retire and do that regularly for fun and $...

Mark