New orchard - stump clearing

[ATsully]

@Grapevine

ed. I am torn with clearing trees under the current environmental state of things. Do I need to remove all stumps or can they be left to disturb the soils as little as possible? The property has a 5-15% pitch throughout, so I’m concerned about erosion after removing the stumps. I suppose I could leave the extensive leaf litter until I am ready to plant cover crops in the spring, to help control erosion. Thoughts on how best to approach this? Thanks, and very thankful to have found this site.

I just cleared 3 acres on the Mass/NH border and faced a similar decision (removing the stumps). I decided to dig around the stumps and cut them to ground level…(buy a few blades if u do this). A few reasons: 1) Removing stumps is major surgery and you’ll need to fill in the holes that are created. 2) Need to figure out something to do with the stumps that are removed. 3) Its expensive.

We planted a 34 fruit trees + bushes + nitrogen fixing plants (permaculture). And about 2.5 acres of pasture…with so much rain most of the pasture grasses have EXPLODED.