Clearing trees

b116757

5 year old buck +
I’ve got a 60 acre native grass prairie hay meadow that has about 30 little tree pockets scattered in it. No idea why they are there but they are annoying to work around making hay. I’ve been pushing the trees out with my CAT 951 then discing the area to smooth it back out. I’ll have to steel some dirt from a different area for a couple of them that had bigger trees in them. The root balls held more soil than I would of liked causing a low spot. Figured it was a good winter project. I’ll have to get some little blue and big blue stem grass seed next spring and scatter in the bare areas. I’ll burn it off this spring or I may even do it this winter so I can see any sticks I’ve missed to clean them up to keep them out of the hay equipment.
 

Attachments

  • B7DE4B9E-BB53-405E-9C0E-FC7AED5AE488.jpeg
    B7DE4B9E-BB53-405E-9C0E-FC7AED5AE488.jpeg
    1 MB · Views: 25
You could get someone in there with a mulcher head - if not too rocky, they can mulch low enough so as not to hang hay equipment - and would leave the soil as is.
 
Let's see. Pay someone to do some work or get some seat time in your own CAT and push some dirt! Kinda know what I would do too.
 
Let's see. Pay someone to do some work or get some seat time in your own CAT and push some dirt! Kinda know what I would do too.
Not really about operating your own equipment, more about using the best equipment for the job. I had several of my trails mulched, and came back with a dozer and pushed a couple larger trees and have been fighting soft spots in those trails ever since. I didnt have the mulcher get those larger trees because of the time involved and my SIL was there with his dozer working for free so we pushed them. That was five years ago, and every time I ride through there, I wish I would have had them mulched. No telling how many buckets of dirt in my FEL I have hauled in there. Hauled about six in there just the other day. The rest of the trails where it was mulched are fine.
 
Maybe a mulcher would give a different result. Probably depends on your definition of large trees. I have cut off large trees flush with the ground and not disturbing dirt but will see settling a number of years later as that large root system rots away underground. Course those large trees no mulcher was going to touch. Maybe even larger mulched trees will still see settling/soft spots but lesser amount possibly.

But I'm frugal and near retirement and have time to do stuff so everyone thinks a bit different.
 
Several varieties of grass seed are predicted to be in short supply next spring. It might pay to order what you need fairly soon.
 
I considered buying a mulcher head for the skid loader and we already have a tree saw I could of used just decided since I had the crawler to use it and remove the stumps completely. Adding a bit of soil back isn’t to big of deal for me the bucket carries 1.6-1.8 yds. I have noticed a few other low spots where the native grass isn’t growing properly that could use a bit of fill also and this maybe why those tree .pockets started to begin with. This isn’t planted native grass it’s original tall grass prairie so I’m trying to repair it so the issue doesn’t reoccur. In one of the other tree pockets the crawler tracks sank about a foot and half so that tree pocket for sure was growing on a soft spot.
 
Top