Stump remover

[*Hawaii5joe*]

Has anyone had any luck with stump remover products? I have an area I want to get a poor man food plot going and I don't mind if the stumps are there now, but it would be good if they are gone someday.

 

[kabic]

How big of stumps?

I dug some smaller ones out with my front end loader. There are those grubber chains that may also work.

 

[sandbur]

Joe-this summer I rented a stump grinder for a half day to remove some from our yard.
I pick it up at Mimbach's-east of St. Cloud.

 

[*Hawaii5joe*]

There will be sizes some around 18" or so. It's going to be more of a rifle shooting lane that I would like to run a disk over someday.

 

[SD51555]

Also depends on what kind of stumps they are, and how long they've been dead. We popped out a ton of stumps on our property this spring with a Bobcat T-190 that we rented. Only used the bucket. It worked surprisingly well. We paid about $350 total to have it delivered and used it for 8 hours.

 

[biglakeba$$]

We did quite a few aspen stumps with a bobcat without too much trouble too. Nothing really huge though that we had to deal with.

 

[tooln]

It all depends on what kind of stump it is. Any hardwood takes a long time to break down naturally. Soft woods will break down in a few years where if you run them over with a disk you'll hardly know they were there.

 

[foggy]

FYI My property was a red-pine plantation for a timber company. They logged-off much of it about ten years ago.....and then sold it to me. Some of those pine stumps can now be pushed out with my loader.....but most of 'em are still quite stout and require my stump grinding (or a dozer) to remove them. I'd say that less than 10% have rotted enough that I could try to get them out with a loader. Hardwoods take longer to rot.

Sometimes I can rid a stump by impacting it (gently ramming :D) with the loader from a few angles.....thus "popping: it free. But such a practice is really hard on tractors and loaders.....and thats how guys spring their equipment or worse. Bobcats or Dozers will withstand more of such a practice IME.

 

[foggy]

When I first bought my land....you could barely set wheels on the land due to the stumps. I had a heckuva time getting from one end of my land to the other on a 4Wheeler. I rented a few different grinders.....namely 25HP Vermeer, and 25HP Rayco self propelled stump grinders.

The Rayco was hands-down the best grinder. I think I paid $150 for an 8 Hour day of grinding(either model) - plus I had to re-fuel it before bringing it back. Sometimes the grinders would be in excellent condition.....and I got allot of work done in a day. Other times the teeth were dull or the belts were fried or some such issue. I ground out about 600 stumps IIRC with the rental grinders. As many as 200 per day.

After a couple of bad grinder events (nothing accomplished)......I decided to upgrade my tractor and buy my own stump grinder. I had bigger dreams of land clearing then.....as compared to when I started out. (I believe I have now ground out over 2200 stumps....but it could be more.....I've lost track.).

My point is that the rental grinders are not too expensive to operate....and you can get lots of work done if you get a good machine.


I would NOT do very many stumps with one of those handle-bar grinders. They will beat you up and spit you out. ;)

 

[foggy]

400 stumps with a handle bar grinder! :eek: Congrats on that feat!

 

[*Hawaii5joe*]

I guess I'll see how it looks once it gets logged out and then decide. It sounds like chemicals for killing stumps is out of the question.

 

[tooln]

A stump or 2 on the edge of a plot is always a good to set a mineral block on.

 

[*Hawaii5joe*]

See the bottom section of my post #9. Urea can be used.

I could see Urea doing the job.

 

[SD51555]

If that's the case, I wonder if diesel exhaust fluid would work too? DEF is like 33% urea I believe.