Brush Clearing- Whats best

[Sniper338]

I'm just north of San Antonio.

The ol hill country... Im from the area too. Everyone I know poisons them, or cuts and poisons the stump then they die/rot out enough to burn.

Theres no machine that will work in many of the areas.

 

[Immike]

time to raise some hogs!

 

[STOMP442]

 

[rardoin]

Donovan is right on the money! Herbicides are your friend. You may have to get a restricted use applicator card but that's pretty easy, at least it is here. Paul

or.....a good friend who is a farmer or rancher. They usually have some of the good stuff in very large quantity.

 

[Riesel]

As I was reading this thread from the beginning I thought "sounds like this guy lives in the Texas Hill Country" and you do. There is a company called Cedar Eater and they are very familiar with your area and your problem with those cedar aka a kind of spruce tree. They are extremely detrimental to the land, suck up all the moisture, nothing grows under them, and can cause extreme soil erosion. Check with those people, I'll bet they can help.
Bottom line, this whole project won't be easy or it won't be cheap. There is no "Cheap and Easy" on this one.
Best of luck on your project. As a side note, if you have some sort of ag exemption, this is a write off.

 

[savagedasher]

So we have a few hundred acres that a number of years ago we cleared of all the cedar groves. Now that all that is done we have second growth coming up that I am attempting to clear. The little cedar saplings can range from less than pencil thick to a couple inches though most are about as thick as a pinky finger. To actually kill them its necessary for it to be cut flush to the ground preferably but just so long as all of the green gets taken off it will be good enough. Some out in the open are larger and solitary and less of my concern at this point. Im trying to eradicate the thousands of saplings growing up under the shady oak trees.

I have been manually clipping these with some old loppers and though it does a great job it wreaks absolute havoc on my knees and back bending over to get a flush cut to the ground that wont serve as a caltrop to the cattle. Im am looking for a better method of doing this, time to mechanize.

Chainsaws do good work but it would still require bending over. I have though about getting small saw and trying to put a 30" bar on it to lessen the bending but I have no idea if thats feasible. They say long bars are for huge powerful saws but Im not clearing forests of 30" trees, just little small crap that should be cut in less than one good "BurrRRRRRrrrr" so Im not sure if the power concerns apply to this situation as it really only needs to move the chain, not rip it though the heart of a redwood.

I have looked for a gas pole saw that would be less than 5' long and they dont appear to exist. An 8' pole would be far too unwieldy.

I have heard about the little saw blades that you can attach to a weedeater but this is very rocky territory and getting a 6" blade in the crevasse seems like a great way to ruin it in short order.The brush clearing weedeaters looked like they would handle the abuse of a few hundred acres better but the first one (stihl fs 360 c-e) I looked at came up just shy of 1k bucks so thats prohibitive in addition to the not being able to get it in between rocks.

Anyone have any good ideas or experiences?

How many is a few hundred?
I think a man with hand tools could do a acre a day if he works hard .
Good land clearing equipment should do 3 acres a hour .
Fire can do hundreds acre a hour . The problem with fire it don't burn the big stuff . Herbicide will kill but you still will have the big .
Only one way to clear I know of do it by hand or use equipment ? Larry

 

[spife7980]

How many is a few hundred?
I think a man with hand tools could do a acre a day if he works hard .
Good land clearing equipment should do 3 acres a hour .
Fire can do hundreds acre a hour . The problem with fire it don't burn the big stuff . Herbicide will kill but you still will have the big .
Only one way to clear I know of do it by hand or use equipment ? Larry

The front pasture that Im clearing the second growth off now is right around 250 I think. In some spots I could clear a few acres an hour, but in some others, such as this past weekend it takes two days to clear out under 2 big oak trees only. Thats what really broke my back and brought me to crowd source some ideas.

I think I will try and find a saw blade that will attach to the ryobi weedeater as a test run along with the actual ryobi pole saw extension without the extension installed. If the saw blade is effective enough Ill find one that fits our old john deer gas stuff and hit it hard. If it cuts good but is under powered Ill look into one of the big ones

 

[savagedasher]

The front pasture that Im clearing the second growth off now is right around 250 I think. In some spots I could clear a few acres an hour, but in some others, such as this past weekend it takes two days to clear out under 2 big oak trees only. Thats what really broke my back and brought me to crowd source some ideas.

I think I will try and find a saw blade that will attach to the ryobi weedeater as a test run along with the actual ryobi pole saw extension without the extension installed. If the saw blade is effective enough Ill find one that fits our old john deer gas stuff and hit it hard. If it cuts good but is under powered Ill look into one of the big ones

We have Several that clear land . The best tool I have seen is a rolerchopper They are a large roller with blades the roller is filled water not only do they flatten it the blades chop ever thing up . Normal price is $ 80.00 to $100.00 a hour the big ones 6" tree is no problem . When we burn we have to chop after . Larry

 

[TAJ45]

Brush blade = BUENO !!! I have 2 blades for a quality but non 2 handle trimmer. It will absolutely sever a 2-3" sapling with one gentle swipe. You speak of pressure or force to cut? None required and I'm 72 and not that buff anymore.
I've done a LOT of trail clearing in our woods with one.
I bought two blades, a package of round stones that fit the tooth profile and Dremeled my way through them. Maybe10 mins max per blade. Just fit the 3/4" long, abt 7/32 dia (guess) into the tooth w a bit of pressure and voila ! You will learn which way to set up to prevent it from climbing out over your fresh edge.
No need to be as fussy on tolerances as a saw chain and won't have 70 eleven teeth to do. Quick and easy. The power you need to cut those smallies is truly miniscule. The brush blade will do wonders.

 

[pirate ammo]

DR Trimmer makes a cutter thats self propelled

 

[Richard Coody]

Rent or hire someone with a forestry mulcher. Does a nice job and only leaves wood chips behind.

 

[PatMiles]

Anyone have any good ideas...

 

[BP1]

Maybe pick up a few of those fellas that hold up a I will work for food sign and see how serious they are.

 

[jetboat]

Agent orange!

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

I have a couple friends that deer hunt swamp edges and old clear cuts in northern Mn. They modify gas weed whippers to use 10" table saw blades, cut all the shooting lanes(rifle) and make small food plot cleanups with them. These guys are not ones to put a lot of time on clean up weekends, so the altered machines must work good. The brush they cut would be birch,poplar,dogwood,choke cherry.

 

[TAJ45]

Interesting - table saw blades.......the brush blade will have probably double the kerf and easier to resharpen. Not to mention more mass, think flywheel.

 

[buckhunter62]

Donovan is right on the money! Herbicides are your friend. You may have to get a restricted use applicator card but that's pretty easy, at least it is here. Paul

Go down to Home Depo with a axe & hire some guy from south of the boarder to run it.

 

[RW]

I agree with taj45 that you just need a straight shaft sthil.

 

[Pwc]

Sonce this is a shooting forum, I would recommend chainshot from a 10 pounder. It'll take awhile but with the muzzle depressed for direct fire, it will take out vegitation up to 6" thick stem/trunk

 

[spife7980]

Wow, this got bumped 2 years later. Progress has been super slow, there are a shit load of cedar trees coming up an donly one of me for a few hours on the weekends and its too hot now so I really only cut during the winter.

I ended up going with the stihl 240.

The brush blades dull too quick for the 30 bucks they charge each, one rock and they are done (there are millions of rocks).

Instead I am taking carbide tipped table saw blades that go on sale for 4-5 bucks each and drilling out the center to 1" to fit the cutter attachment. The normal brush blades dont last a tank full of gas before they are dull, the carbide tipped last two gas tanks. Eventually they start to lose the carbide tips so they start to cut worse and it just makes too much friction withthe trees squeezing on the non cutting blade and they get hot and then they warp and start cupping so they no longer cut at all.

We got rains last winter and I found more mushrooms than I have ever seen before. Its the only pic I have with the saw blade shown

Before facing one way

After facing the other