I find myself needing to move trees on occasion for myself or friends. I’ve done bare root transplanting by hand in dormant season, which has worked fine, but I’m imaging something even lower impact for small trees that also enables moving larger trees.
Thinking about a shovel type blade attached directly to a set of bucket ears, so you’re able to use the excavator to push it into the soil and under the tree at a 30 or 45 degree angle or whatever. Basically it would be just 1 spade of the 3-4 spades common to a commerical hydraulic tree spade, and you would have to work your way around the circle making multiple penetrations before freeing the tree. But, it would allow cutting quite a large root ball. Then one would lift the tree and attached root ball with a strap or net or something.
Anyone done something like this? I think the main problem is my excavator is only 2 tons so really doesn’t have that much grunt. But a narrower shovel blade should get around that.
My neighbor has something like this but his mower is a 6 foot zero turn and the second mower is a 6 foot finishing mower. He mows a 12 foot wide swath with that rig.
They make u blades for skid steers that work well. I ran a nursery and we had one to remove trees that were no longer salable. You can easily bareroot smaller trees with it.
Nursery Jaws made the one we used. Its pricey. Not sure you could justify the cost for a few trees.
I knew a guy who had a larger version on the front of a bulldozer.
If your excavator doesnt have a lot of guts it may be a challenge.
If its a smaller tree you can bend it over and use the curl aspect of your machine. It would be best with a clean out bucket. No teeth.
We also had a tree spade that was mounted to the excavator quick tach. We used a 20" Dutchman spade on it. We dug thousands of evergreens with it. They are fairly common in the industry. We mounted it on a JD 65.
If you have auxiliary hydraulic connections available you could do something similar to the skid steer attachments that are used for creating ball and burlap root balls. There may already be something like that on the market.
Alternatively you could retrofit a stump bucket for a vermeer style walk behind loader to be used in place of an excavator bucket.
Neither would be effective for established larger trees, this would be for trees that are 5-6 leafs in ground or less for a 2 ton machine in good soil. They just wouldn’t have the oomph to do more.
It does have aux hydraulics and I do have the welding/hydraulic experience to DIY a proper tree spadex but for occasional/hobby use I don’t think it’s worth it.
Honestly a hydraulic hammer with a flared wider bit in it might be just the ticket.
That would get around the machine weight limitation with the extra force. I hear they’re hell on your pins and bushings but would definitely be a very handy attachment to have around
If your excavator has a skid steer quick attach and auxiliary remote. You might consider looking into renting a tree spade. They even make them for 3 point, for tractors.
I’m thinking right now of a very simple, manual version that would be cheaper to make.
Cut some 1/4" plate into a triangular/shovel shape, sharpen the edges and weld it to a solid bar stock handle. Maybe fashion some kind of stand/support to hold it at the appropriate angle. Then beat on the end of it with a sledgehammer and work your away around the tree.
Or just attach the thick shovel blade to a rental jackhammer
