I was always taught 3 face cords in a cord
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How many trees does it typically take to make a cord?
Googler told me a number like 600 or something last night when i checked and i know that’s completely false 
I have a 25 acre pasture field which was abandoned in the 80’s and had multiple degrees of reclamation. About 7 acres are not reclaimable due to large trees. I grubbed the smaller trees 6" and down with my Bobcat and burned the roots and all. I would cut any of them that had small logs and save for the neighbor in 12’ lengths.That eliminates a lot of wood to be burned. I would cut some larger trees 8-16" and and use a root buckle and dig them up the roots and stumps and disposed of them in the same manner as above. I have lots of infested ash. This was pretty hard on me physically as I’ve had 4 major back surgeries.
Once I have it fairly clear I pull my ripper/sub-soiler through to find any more roots that I missed in the grubbing. I have to pick up “lots” of roots and large rocks. The area was never tilled before and has always been a pasture. I chisel plow it in the end.
I have the equipment to do a lot of it. This past summer I had an arborist with heavy commercial equipment come in. I had a large pig hickory that was hanging over some trees, shading them too much so I had them trim it and some other problem trees. While they were there I had them remove old ash and cherries. Maybe 70 of them. Some that were too difficult for me to remove. They had a tracked Cat machine with shears that would cut trees up to 18" then picked up the tree and drove it to the chipper, laid it down and the chipper guy feed the whole tree into the chipper. This left me with lots of chips and nothing that needed burning.
The then came in with a stump grinder where I marked the ones I wanted completely ground out to the main roots and ones that they just needed to get below the surface so I could mow. To cut cost.
Applied 4 tons to the acre of lime and a build up level of fertilizer. Which soil samples said it needed.
They did in 6 hours what would take me a month, maybe two to do if I was totally focused on it. It was pretty impressive what they were able to do.
I will have them in again this summer on a smaller scale to pick off existing infested ash that will be a problem in the future.The shears eliminate the trees falling where they shouldn’t and can haul them to a central chipping area.
I’ve been cleaning this abandoned field for 10 years. Having those guys in was well worth it to me.
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Does this make the ground squishy? What’s the purpose of having them grounded?
I remember taking down about 6 trees back in 2014 then having the stumps grounded but i don’t remember how the area was like afterwards because i never went back there.
Does pulling the stump out make the ground squishy? Wondering because my backyard is squishy right now and wondering how or why it happened.
@smsmith … 3 face cords of 16 inch firewood = 1 cord.
A cord is 4’ x 8’ x 4’ (or 48").
16 + 16 + 16 = 48".
TNHunter
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@Melon … depends on the size of the tree.
When I worked for a timber company as a young man… I saw a poplar tree on the end of a center point off in a deep hollow in Perry County… that myself and two others could not reach around.
It had to be 200 ft tall with huge limbs.
That one tree would have made several cords of wood.
I have some 20-24 inch diameter chestnut oaks cut down that will come close to making a cord. They have huge tops… lots of limb wood.
If you were working with 10-12 inch diameter trees… it might take 3 or 4 or more to make a cord.
On making the ground squishy…
If you have stumps removed with track hoe or dozer… there will be a pretty good hole there… the larger the tree/stump the larger the hole. They will need to fill that in and track over it some to compress it good.
Still later on it may settle more and you end up with a low spot there that needs more filling.
The same thing happens if you just cut the tree off low to the ground and then have the stump ground. You end up with a big pile of wood chips and soil mix that you can rake over that ground off stump. Initally it will be a mound that slowly over a few years will sink down some as the rest of that stump (under ground) and the wood chips rots… and eventually you may have to add some fill dirt to fill in the low spot.
That ground off stump area would be a bit squishy for a few years… until it all rots and becomes soil.
TNHunter
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Thank you, so would you say it’s better to pull out a stump or grind it from your experience?
@Melon … i would say it depends.
In the area where our new home will be built we are going to have a full basement… there will be a track hoe and dozier involved there to get that basement dug. Since that equipment is going to be there anyway… I will let them take care of any stumps in that basement area and any stumps that would be close to the foundation.
When you have several stumps removed that way… you also have to deal with… what do you do with them after they are dug out.
I will let him just push all those stumps down the hill thru the woods to a place out of sight… they will eventually rot and compost.
May take 10+ years.
I an area where I did not have to have heavy equipment involved I am fine with just cutting those stumps low and having them ground.
Keep in mind that if you cut a large hickory or oak tree off low and have it ground… the guy that grinds stumps for me charges 50.00 per large stump.
When he is done grinding the stump… he rakes the chips and dirt back over the stump area. When he is done you could easily bushhog it to maintain it.
I had 4 … 20-24 inch diameter hickory trees in the part of the field that I turned into my new orchard.
I removed those 4 trees… made and sold firewood of them… and cut those stumps off low. It cost me 200.00 to get those 4 stumps ground.
That was just a couple years ago… and last summer the guy that mowes my yard … agreed to also mow my new orchard area.
All 4 of those ground off large hickory stump areas were in good enough shape that they could be mowed at 4 inch height.
One thing to keep in mind is that even though those those 4 spots are good to mow over in just a couple years… it is going to take several more years before the remainder of the stump and roots will fully rot.
I would not plant a fruit tree in that exact spot where the stump was… and even out 6 ft from where the stump was… there may still be some rather large and stubborn roots in place that will take several more years to fully rot.
TNHunter
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Thank you for this insight. All of this is super new to me so everything written on here has been very helpful.
I’ve been thinking about getting an excavator to pull them out but i think that’s what they did previously and it’s made the backyard very squishy and unusable for the time being. I may just stump grind the areas I’m not planning to plant. We have a giant maple tree with multiple trunks i want out asap but that’s about it for really large trees. Everything else is no more than a foot and a half at best but most are smaller than a foot in diameter. I have a few people coming by on Sunday to give me bids for the 7 trunk maple that’s too close to the house and too big for someone who’s only experience is by sight and not first hand.
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Melon, as far as excavator pulling out the stump or grinding. The excavator is going to leave you with a root ball mass and roots you will need to dispose of or deal with. A grinder will leave you with a bunch of shredded wood and dirt. Like TNHunter said it will take a few years to rot the mulch down, it will cause a Nitrogen draft on the soil around it as the microbes break down the cellulose fibers. If you are growing turf on top of it it will take years to establish. I would recommend replacing some of it with soil. Maybe 5-6" so the grass doesn’t yellow.
I grind my non growing areas down to maybe 4" below grade and just cover them up. They charge me $20 if they are doing a bunch. There not a lot of mulch in those shallow grinds. I just don’t want to hit them with a mower. In my growing area I have them grind them so there is no central root mass, leaving the main roots as ground off stubs. Maybe 4-5" inches in diameter. I then use my equipment to remove those roots which may be 15’ long at times. They are rarely deeper than 6". They usually charge me $50 for those grindings, but they are doing a bunch on site. Some doing a few as 7 they may charge you by the inch.
Now I can rip and plow without worrying about damaging my equipment or my body. I mix the mulch around pretty good in this process, so I can plant, but knowing I may have to keep an eye on the nitrogen issues.
I would think around your house grinding would be a better way to go. There will be much less disturbance, and you can have them follow any big roots out too on that big maple. Then bring in some soil for your turf and compost the the top layer of grindings somewhere on site. Good luck.
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I had the center of my orchard done with excevator and bulldozer. I’ve pushed most of the debris to a hedge row of sorts. The rest of the area is cut with chainsaw leaving a good tall stump. If the stump is blocking the tractor I cut it flat. It the stump is where a teee needs to be plated, I dig it out with the backhoe. I try to clear a 1/4 acre a year, probability need to do more thus year. When the stumps rot a bit I push them over…thats years later.
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The method that makes the most sense is a dozer. They push over the trees, pile them up, and set fire to them. Unfortunately for me, the people I had quote 2 acres wanted $15,000 and acre 6 years ago, more than the price of the land. Maybe you’ll have better luck wherever you may be.
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where are you because it’s about 100k an acre for a good housing plot over here or 50-75k in the rural areas.
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The people who’ve quoted me so far are willing to haul them away for me as well.
Does grass seed count as turf?
I’m planning on having the back yard mostly for the dogs and side/front for the fruits and veggies. I have over 5 different grape vines coming in and i have no idea what to do with them yet lol
Regional rates for land clearing services varies widely depending on local contractors. It is even worse if you are not local and treated as a “whale”. That being said if you can stretch it out then you will probably pay the least to have someone run a forestry mulcher to get rid of all the small stuff. Then come back a year later and chainsaw the trees and pop them out with an excavator. The big maple is a special project. The mulch is a nitrogen sink as it is decomposed so the top layer of soil will be good for clover mixtures.
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Around here it’s cheapest to hire a dozer or large track hoe to push/pull trees out. A large track hoe is pretty fast. The dirt guy will put the thumb down on the hoe so it can grab the stumps. With a hoe, he can quickly rake off the branches, then rip the stumps out. Whereas with a dozer, you have to sort of dig down and cut the roots on a big tree. With small trees a dozer works pretty good. Then you can just push all the trees in a pile and burn them.
Here’s a vid I’ve posted before of me digging out a peach tree with my little tractor attachment backhoe. It has the thumb down, so you can see how it works. My little backhoe only has a 2 cubic foot bucket, so it’s limited on the size of tree it can bring down and pull out (it doesn’t take too much time to dig out a 1’ dia. peach tree stump). But it will give you an idea what a large track hoe can do. A large track hoe will have a at least a 1 yard bucket, and power to easily pick up a car. So it can rip down and dig out very large trees pretty quickly. A large track hoe can bring down and dig out the stump of a large tree (say 5’ in dia.) in about 10 min. or less, including the time it takes to move it to a burn pile.
The vid is poor quality. It is surprisingly hard to operate a backhoe with one hand, while trying to film with the other. The last half of the vid I fill the stump hole with dirt beside the terrace, then put the broken up tree in that hole.
There is a 160 acre property just north of our orchard, which sold to a very wealthy couple. They were from the city and hired a tree crew to clear some of the land. It was going slow and very expensive. They talked to a local dirt guy, whose done work for me before.
He brought down one of his big hoes to their place. They couldn’t believe how fast he could get work done. They never had the tree crew back. He charges $150-$200 per hour, on his machines, depending on size, but they can easily do the work of 20-50 men.
I’ve had the same guy clear some fence line of big trees before we installed our deer fence. There were some big stumps, but they burn just as easy as the trees, as long as there is some tree wood to go with the stumps. You have to let it dry out a little bit.
For smaller areas, like my backyard, I just chainsawed trees. Once I rented a 40’ lift for a couple hundred dollars and took a very large tree down and pruned some of my neighbors trees at the same time. You want a good quality light chain saw to make it go faster. On those stumps, we just left them short enough so that you can drive a mower over them. They rot down after a few years.
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This is the guy with the tree shear moving a 18" elm. Carried it 140 yards to the chipping site. It was gone into the chip pile in 5 minutes. I have a Bobcat S650 and that tree would have tipped me in an instant. I was amazed by that machine.
Everybody has their ways, they all work if they work for you. This leaves my ground basically undisturbed unlike dozers and backhoes. Which I have access to both. They removed 70 trees 10" to 18", chipped all the tops. Crew of 4 and 6 hours of time. Came out to $6900 with an additional grinding fee of $2000 for about 80 trees of various sizes, they ground some I had cut before. The also bucket trimmed a big Bitter nut Hickory that had grown over the orchard. The branch was 18" in diameter at the trunk and about 40’ long. That took about two hours.
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Sorry was supposed to be a video. I can’t figure out how to upload as a video. always turns it into a jpeg
Hi Jerry,
I hope you don’t think I was trying to dis the method you used to clear your trees. I completely agree, everyone has different methods.
I think you and I would agree that the key to clear large areas of trees cheaply and quickly, is big equipment, whether it’s shearing equip. or digging equip.
Most tree crews around here are city based tree crews which have equipment sized for yards. You obviously had larger equip to clear your trees. I wouldn’t discount that a bit.
Just for interest, this vid is probably one of the fastest ways to clear acreages, but few people tree crews or dirt contractors would have this equip.
I think the key is to use bigger equip if the area is large. If the area is small, tree crews with chainsaws and stump grinders can get the job done, if they don’t charge stupid expensive city prices.
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Yep. I used one on the front of a Large CAT skid steer for a long weekend. I used it early on prior to building my pond and again a few years later, just to work on the dead ash and the smaller stuff. Those are great and my neighbor has one on an excavator, but it may not be that big. All good early on for me. I’ve been cleaning the place up for 12 years and it’s kind of looking pretty nice at the moment. So I as go along I get pickier on what I do, so as not to tear the place up. I agree, those are most effective and can make short work of a lot of brush in a short amount of time at a minimum of cost.
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