Stump Removal

I have a three acre plot where I removed all of the 40 year old planted pines and another 2 acre plot where I removed about 75% of the 40 year old planted pines. I am wanting to remove the stumps in the fields so I can plant them. What is the best way to do this. Track Hoe is one option and a Stumpex Stump grinder is another. Track Hoe would also involve removing the stumps to a place they can be burned. Whichever I choose, the areas will be smoothed and then have a heavy plow pulled across until there is a decently smooth seedbed.

Anybody with pros/cons of either method? Is there another option I should consider?

You will eventually end up with holes in the field where the stumps rot in the soil. Pines have big deep tap roots.

I would bury the stumps at each location. 40 year old tree stumps leave a big whole. Probably take them 5 or so years to rot out if you just work around them. Use a machine to grade off your plot. Itll work better than discing.

Excavator

Fastest way is dig out and bury. They wont burn, not easily anyhow, itll take forever. Stump grinder is ok but chances are the dirt will erode from around whats left under ground and youll be back to hitting stumps with your bushhog and disk. Chemical stump rotter will take a long time to work. Dig and bury is most expensive but when the trackhoe leaves you can start planting right then.

Do not use a bucket for stumping on a trackhoe. Use a ripper. Pluck the stumps out without a huge dirtball coming up. Bury stumps in pit together. They’ll go through a heat and rot pretty fast

Excavator, the grinder just hits the top of the stump and when you hit one with your disc or other planter you will be breaking stuff.

If you want it done right and quickly, then, trackhoe then dozer with a rake. If you are going to bury them, that's fine, but I would NOT bury them in the field you are using for a food plot. I don't care what they say that spot is going to collapse over time and you end up with a low spot/hole in your food plot you can't ever get rid of. You have to keep adding dirt back to it. Luckily, most of the time the dozer pushes up a little dirt around the edges and you can use that if you have a tractor with a FEL, but it's a pain.

Another way I've done it is - wait a year or two, get a grinder/mulcher out there and get it down ground down as far as you can. I thought that method would work great, but the problem is that you end up with a lot of uneven areas/bark/mulch which really needs to be spread out - again with a bulldozer with a rake or just a bulldozer. This method MIGHT be slightly cheaper, but it's not easy to get someone to come in and do both.

Generally, it's much easier to find a guy with a trackhoe and a bulldozer. As busy at they are right now, it might be hard to get them to come do just five acres, but maybe they will or maybe you can find some other road work for them to do with he dozer.

I've used them all. All have some advantages and disadvatages. But they all have 1 thing in common: $$$. Last price I got on 30 yo planted pines back to pasture was $1200/acre. That's been a couple of years ago but you are looking at least $6000 in central Alabama. Makes ribeye and t-bones look a lot more appealing.

Rent one of these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZd84NJb-AE

One pound of tannerite, five pounds of ammonium nitrate.

A guy out of Montgomery has one of these for use in forestry/farm environments. I priced last year and it seemed reasonable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYMsKS1tOGc

Yea, I've heard of those but have zero experience with them. For foodplots I'll just disk around them for about 5 years. Planted pines usually in rows so its easy....and cheap. Then disk over them and as years go by disking, the holes fill in. My dad just disked up about 20 acres of stumps in the past 2 weeks. Only 1 stump out of 20 acres gave him problems. But as I said, we go cheap if time permits.

That thing looks cool, but slow as Christmas.

Think the guy told me it averages about 3 minutes per stump for pine. Just like every other option, there will be a hole that will settle over time. Haven't made up my mind, but the reason I like this option is that you don't have stumps to dispose of, which requires more time/effort and in the beginning there is not a large hole like you encounter when you pull the stump out.

This is what came and cleared most of mine January of 2019.. This video is not from my property but it went from thick standing pines to that type mulch bed in 8 hours.
If you watch toward the end you see how deep it can go and mixes the dirt and chips pretty well covering up whats left of the stumps. I wouldn't be afraid to run a disk across it after this. Wouldn't touch it with a turning plow though.
I went this route over a dozer or excavator both of which I have access too and can run myself because there were no piles, or stumps left behind to burn or debris to haul off. I ended up with about 8-14" of mulch bed when he was done. I thought that much organic matter staying put to make topsoil was a positive. A few weeks after it was done I drug it with a cross tie to smooth it out. Seeded it in a winter mix and drug lightly with cross tie again.
A year later and the chips are decomposing very quickly. A lot quicker than what I thought it would. This same guy has a 375 hp subsoiler that as he says after the mulcher comes thru will make it row crop ready.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-W...K8HE6Du-ZpgLI1A4Q3_1TvMyYQtp_ptuTHI6UXy0


Subsoiler type video. if you watch toward the end with it raised you see how deep below the surface its going compared to the packer wheel.
. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47d07JJmr2E

Rmart30 - Good info. My ultimate goal on the three acre plot is to plant soybean, corn or some other food source for deer. Did you use a contractor, if so, who? PM me if you prefer.

North Alabama land clearing and forestry mulching is who the contractor was. Tyler Rains 256-777-3384

Even though he was about 40% more I went with him over local guys with skidsteer mulchers because his machines were higher hp and larger and wider heads. The machine I linked above that did mine was 2 ft wider than most skid steer heads and 100hp more. So for every pass he made he was getting 2 ft more of work done which saved time. Since they did mine they have upgraded to even higher HP machines. They charge a flat daily rate for 8 hours of run time. It was not cheap for what he did for me but when you compare what he did in 8 hours to finished product, to what it would have taken me, with my saws, tractor with grapple, 2 laborers, 3 or 4 weekends cost of wood chipper and stump grinder rental I was money ahead letting him knock it out in a day.


Here is one of his new mulchers and his subsoiler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7FI0AVU3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMHhF-Me05g

Ive never seen anything make that big a mess out of a piece of ground. That was crazy

That’s gonna leave a crater