Road Drainage Ditch Question

[bigbendmarine]

Question for anyone on the board who has had to deal with drainage ditch maintenance... I've got a 300+ yard long road that runs from my back field down to my pond.

May not get the angle exactly correct but the borders of the road edge slope down about 45 degrees to drainage ditches on both sides that runs pretty much the entire length of the road. The ditches are about knee height deep before running back up again at about the same angle, and then have about 15 yard wide grass / bramble edges before running into wooded tree lines on both sides of the road. If description seems a bit tough to follow, here's a pic that hopefully will help it make sense. Dry tall weedy growth that borders the road is what's growing up in the drainage ditches (spot halfway down road with green growth is low spot where culvert runs under / across road).



I can actually get my tractor (have a 10' PTO mower I use with it) and / or heavy duty 60" zero turn riding mower into the grass bramble flat edges and keep them from getting too overgrown, but the ditches are steep enough I'm afraid to cut them with the mower and in the wetter spots have gotten stuck when I've tried flirting along the edges of a few less steep spots.

How would y'all recommend cleaning / clearing the ditches on a regular (at least annual) basis? Have owned the place 3 years now (year or two since since pic above was taken) and few wrist thick trees are growing in a few spots.

Cut and let edges get green then burn ditches / cut saplings left? Sling blade and bush axe time? Any time saving implement for tractor I should consider (since 10' wide flat mower seems less than ideal)?

Forgive the ignorance and know if I can find the time a sling blade and bush axe can do the job, but with a task list outside the ditch maintenance a mile long, would love to hear how forum members deal with your own ditches.

Thanks in advance for any / all wisdom shared.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Could you wait until the ground is frozen and run over it with a brush hog?

 

[bigbendmarine]

Probably should have added my place is just outside subtropical Tallahassee, FL... what is this word "frozen" to which you refer?

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Does that ditch ever dry out during an August drought? Even if you could only get in there once every few years it would help out.

I have shooting lanes in my swamp in NW WI that are often too wet for me to mow with an ATV pulled brush hog. I bought one of those stihl hand held brush cutters that look like a cross between a weedwacker and a circular saw. They work really well - just throw on some waterproof boots and start cutting.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Sidebar post few folks might find humorous on the "frozen" note... we probably average 3 or 4 mornings with frost on the ground each year, but only about every 3rd year that we get temps that stay cold for more than a couple of hours. Few years back a cold front pushed down and I saw predictions called for temps below freezing almost the entire night. Ran into one of my field edges, cut down two sweetgum saplings (HAPPILY), and stuck them in buckets filled with rocks. Ran a sprinkler between them all night and in the morning woke up my daughter and told her Elsa had visited our yard overnight. Don't know I've ever seen her happier! LOL!

 

[bigbendmarine]

I bought one of those stihl hand held brush cutters that look like a cross between a weedwacker and a circular saw. They work really well - just throw on some waterproof boots and start cutting.

Sometimes drier then others but even when near drought portions of it stay fairly damp. If can't find a way to drive it, think this may well be my next best option. Actually have used heavy duty hedge trimmers to cut down about 70 yards of heavy cattail / reed growth along dock... combo of quick sweep with hedge trimmer followed by trimmer blade or light chainsaw work for few bigger saplings might well be the trick.

 

[Jim Timber]

Forestry cutter would be my approach. They're the heavy duty weed whackers with handle bars and a blade. It'd make quick work of that whole area. Use your loader and a grapple to clean up the mess and create some bunny habitat with the debris.

 

[Tap]

Not sure if this could be an option for your situation, but I have a narrow bank that runs along the ditch beside my driveway. It wasn't really "mow-able", so I had to weed wack it several times per year. Last year I decided to nuke it and plant it in clover. I kept invading weeds at bay by spraying with 24db. It's an extremely small micro plot, but deer and rabbits sure like it.

 

[John-W-WI]

I thought that was a picture from Wisconsin in July?

 

[buckdeer1]

Is your road wide enough for what you do?The part you are talking about is the brown strips?If yes to these questions why are you wanting to mow?

 

[TreeDaddy]

......still enjoying the photo of the crimson clover and deer.....

bill

 

[bigbendmarine]

Is your road wide enough for what you do?The part you are talking about is the brown strips?If yes to these questions why are you wanting to mow?

Can't say I'm a drainage ditch expert, but my understanding is you don't want them to become too clogged / overgrown as it impedes water movement / drainage rates. Flip side is you don't want them bare long either as it can quickly lead to erosion issues. The slope isn't severe on the road but there is about a 20' drop in elevation from the start of the road (closest to our house) down to the pond edge.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Not sure if this could be an option for your situation, but I have a narrow bank that runs along the ditch beside my driveway. It wasn't really "mow-able", so I had to weed wack it several times per year. Last year I decided to nuke it and plant it in clover. I kept invading weeds at bay by spraying with 24db. It's an extremely small micro plot, but deer and rabbits sure like it.

Tap, I LOVE that idea as the deer already use the road in a couple of places as crossing points between the wooded edges and feed on the road / edge growth as well. Just be sweetening the pot they're already using and helping to keep their attention on the very center of my place a bit more.

 

[useyourbow]

Not certain if you have an atv but they make off set brush mowers that you could pull behind your atv. The atv could stay topside while the brush mower rides down in/along the slope. Just a thought.

 

[Tap]

Tap, I LOVE that idea as the deer already use the road in a couple of places as crossing points between the wooded edges and feed on the road / edge growth as well. Just be sweetening the pot they're already using and helping to keep their attention on the very center of my place a bit more.

A couple of thoughts on this...
You need to be careful with herbicide selection with anything that drains into waterways or ponds. It's the surfactant in herbicides that's harmful to fish, etc.
But there are herbicides that are safe on legumes that can be used around water. Clearcast (same as Raptor) is actually labeled for use around water. A friend used it to safely control cattails in his pond.
I have a question for herbicide experts out there. Is crop oil harmful to water life like non-ionic surfactants are?
I ask that because grass may become your biggest problem in clover plots like you are considering. I wonder if cloth/crop oil is safe to use near water??

A lot of us small acreage owners struggle with finding space to grow plots. If we look around our properties carefully, we can often find appropriate places we've never considered. Hard to mow banks, rocky ground that can't be mowed, leach fields, places in our yards, etc. We spend so much effort mowing or weed whacking places that would be nice plots while saving us the regular chore of mowing. May as well make a nice plot of something purdy to look at like crimson and draw wildlife...also purdy to look at

 

[JFK52]

Stihl hand held straight shaft gas engine brush cutter, just like Ben.MN/WI mentioned in his response. I have one for jobs on my farm that where it is too difficult to get the brush hog into the area to be mowed/maintained. They work great and you can get replacement blades if you bugger one up. I use mine to take out brush under my 28 apple trees. The cab of the Kubota would do too much damage to the apple trees if I tried to use it for this job. Walking and cutting with the Stihl gets the job done quickly.
I personally would not even attempt to get any kind of mower or tractor into that steep of a drainage ditch.

 

[Jim Timber]

Handheld is a misnomer - you wear them on a shoulder strap. :)

 

[j-bird]

This is how they mow ditches and trim trees back from roads in my area. They just reach out and down or up and let it rip!!! Tears the crap out of trees!!!! Not sure if you could find someone to do this for you or not in your area. If the area is small enough a clearing saw would be something you could afford, with some good old fashioned work!

 

[Tree Spud]

Are you going to actually show more pictures of your draining dike and drainage issue ... or just pictures of your property?

 

[SD51555]