How do you guys clear woodland for new orchard land? We used a backhoe to dig trees out for our current orchard, but was wondering everyone’s preferred methods? Any pros of clearing by hand with the chainsaw?
Mine was on a small scale, but I cut down with a chainsaw and woodchipped the branches into a big pile. I saved the large pieces for firewood. I planted and laid out my rows so that they didn’t interfere with some of the stumps, then I used the wood chips to mulch around the trees. It’s now a year later and I just used a grinder to take most of the stumps down below grade. I think it all really depends how much area and how concentrated your stumps will be. I was able to get away with leaving them for a short period of time.
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Excavators to pop roots is nice. Consider turning your existing trees into mulch for the orchard, fence posts, new buildings, etc… Biochar is greatly beneficial as a soil amendment.
Clearing by chainsaw may limit leverage to pop roots later if needed, plus I find using equipment is generally preferred when available just for the safety aspect of using a chainsaw vs being farther away in a machine.
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40 acres was just cleared down the road from us for row crops over this past summer. They did a great job with excavators, dozers, a huge dozer with a root rake and a grader. They burned the tree tops, stumps and sold the timber (saw logs). I would say that’s some fertile soil.
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I talked to the people on craigslist that sell firewood and one of them came down. They cut most of it and hauled it off for free. I then burnt the small limbs that were left. The stumps I left cut to ground level. Most are gone now a few years later.
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At that time I was trying to expand the orchard. Guessing it was a little more than a half acre.
Our orchard was an old farmfield left fallow/abandoned for ~40+ years and was becoming forest again. Due to the scale and not owning heavy equipment, we hired a tree service company to clean it up.
- Anything less than ~6" diameter, they pushed over to pop the roots out and forestry mulched right there.
- Larger trees they cut, and I had them grind the stump a few inches below grade. I didn’t want to rip up root balls as I didn’t want to disturb the soil that much, nor have to dispose of so many root balls! It hasn’t been any issue for me leaving them in there.
- They chipped everything up and left the chips for me.
- I hired a local farmer to disk multiple times to effectively level the bumpy old field. I drug a spring-tooth drag behind my 4-wheeler to level out the loose soil nice and flat prior to grass seed.
I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to do this work with a chainsaw or by hand. Literally all summer, I’m sure! It wasn’t particularly inexpensive, but the tree removal was done in 5 days by a whole crew and turned out great.
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Our trees are smaller here, mostly mesquite. We are clearing 160 acres, this winter, with a large cat with a blade beneath it to cut the roots and windrow the trees/ brush
That’s a great idea! I never thought of that but I’m going to do just that as soon as i can!
I have been clearing about half an acre that had some good sized timber on it… for our new home build. My new orchard is right next to this area.
I have been using chainsaw to get the trees down and then cut them up for firewood… it is mostly oak, hickory and sourwood… all which makes good firewood… i have cut, bucked, split (with splitting hammer and wedges) and stacked and sold 16 face cords of firewood so far. I have been getting 60.00 per face cord (20 inch length wood).
Also colleected 8 … 9 ft cedar posts… that I am giving to my son in law for a chicken run build.
I have been burning huge piles of the smaller wood that is left… and used some of the ash, char to top dress all my fruit trees.
The stumps that are left… some (where our foundation/basement will be) will be removed by backhoe/excavator… others I am cutting the stumps low… and will have those stumps ground.
It is hard work… but I like it.
I probably have around 8 face cords of trees down … yet to be cut up. Going to work on that again today.
TNHunter
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Great post. My recommendation is similar based on clearing out 3 acres. I would add that ideally you plan the orchard layout and have them cut holes with excavator to plant trees if you are ready to plant. Working through the root mass when planting is time consuming. Also by disturbing the weed seed bank you will get a lot of undesirables so you will need to “roundup” on green up.
Well if you’ve got bigger trees over 6-8" in diameter you’re going to have to do a lot of tree felling work first and get that all bucked up or piled up somewhere. But once you’ve got small trees and brush, you should be able to run a tractor bucket (ideally with spikes) near to the ground through the area and rip most all of it out and pile somewhere. You’ll have a lot of exposed soil, but you’ll have unobstructed access too, ready to plant. A good cover crop will cover the rest.
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We cleared our orchard site in 2018-19, a 12 acre lot about half covered in mostly pine. We used a WoddMaxx pto driven chipper on the back of a 35hp New Holland to chip the branches, and reserved those chips for mulch in the orchard. We cut the trees high, about 4-5’ up, intentionally leaving a length of lower trunk to act as leverage for pulling the stumps. We had ideas of cutting roots with a sub soiler and then pulling the trees with a larger tractor, but it became obvious that wasn’t going to work. So, we did all the dropping and chipping and then contracted to have an excavator come in and pull the stumps. We also had them take the stumps off site. Once that was accomplished we were able to run the subsoiler through to break up remaining root mass.
The first couple of video’s in this playlist cover this process:
Orchard - YouTube
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$60 a cords a steal! cut , split and delivered is going for $200 / cord up here and it doesnt burn nearly as hot as your types of wood do. mostly maple, birch and some beech.
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@steveb4 … I dont deliver… my wife puts it on a face book yard sale site and it gets sold quickly.
60.00 is about average for what a 20 inch face cord goes for down here.
I have seen a few asking 75.00… I may go up a little next year.
TNHunter
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If it was cost effective to bring it up north you could easily get triple what you’re getting down there. but there is much more demand up here. my parents went through 7 cord on a average winter.
$180/cord vs. $200/cord isn’t that hugely different, even if the cheaper wood provides more BTUs.
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I sell by the face cord… some call it a rank or rick of firewood. I think northern folks commonly call it a face cord… southern folks a rank.
A face cord… or rank or rick… is a 4ft x 8ft stack of firewood at some specific length.
My firewood is cut 20 inch long.
A cord is 4 ft x 8 ft x 4ft.
My face cord is 4 ft x 8 ft x 20 inch.
TNHunter
ok. big difference . yeah our cords are double. most cut 20-24in lengths here but double rows.