The subject may sound rudimentary to many but I've not knowingly seen one of these used and am looking for something to pull behind my 11B dozer to break up soil for planting next year? Is this something I should be looking for or something better or more efficient? I don't have a large farm tractor except my White 2-55 that is 2WD.

I will be removing a lot of small and medium sized trees later this year including the stumps with the dozer to return the ground to productivity. I'm thinking a hay crop being probably first next year.

Thanks, 

Thanks. Your response generates as many questions as answers. Basically I'm looking at uprooting and taking down about 350 trees in ground that hasn't been broken in over 90 years we know of. I've seen these things called disc harrows with fluted discs, curvature discs, straight discs, etc. Most I've seen have one set facing in and the next set facing out at opposing angles.  I've even seen some with teeth and discs, and spring tines on the same implement.

The only "harrows" I've seen used in reality is ones they drag the ball diamonds with at the schools around here. One I'm sure is a spring type, the other a spike type but they are only smoothing with them using the same compact farm tractors they mow with.

I can get a relative to drive about 24 miles to do the groundwork as he does farm and has everything needed. The area is not opened up yet and a cabbed tractor will not ingress due to low canopy of the trees. I'm going to bulldoze a road through widening the existing ATV path but really want to rely upon others to the least. Don't mind purchasing something that will be needed routinely and I don't even know if this "harrow" implement is correct for the application. There is about 12 acres to be opened up and I don't want to use a tiller on the back of the tractor for it......

Thanks,

Even if you have trees that need the blade to push them out a heavy duty offset harrow might be good on the clean up of smaller growth.

After the the initial tillage a chisel plow or field cultivator would be good at gathering the small limbs and roots that need to be cleaned up to make it ready harvest hay. Chisel or cultivator are basically the same tool just depth you wish to run them and the size of wood your raking up.  

Well both typing at the same time. And I missed the part what is it. With trying to leave rocks in the ground and not pulling them up.  A 9 inch spaced offset disc is standard tillage tool used most often.  So the search engine on the computer is your friend to see the differences. 

And with the added information of only 12 acres, unless money is growing on the trees buying a disc is lot of money to spend. Well at least extra heavy duty offset made to chop brush.

I used both to clean up after a vineyard removal here. A excavator was used to pick each vine out of the ground. Leaving a 2 foot deep hole on a 6 foot by 10 foot grid. In 3 passes, in 3 different directions with a chisel plow running a foot deep it was in a condition that you could drive it without falling in a hole. I then used the cultivator with more teeth closer together to finish smoothing it all out.

Thanks guys. I have no experience working ground whether construction, or agriculture. I usually just repair the damaged items. This ground is hard and stays that way even after heavy rains. Lots of clay just under the surface. Not really something I want to spend a lot on, but do want to make it some kind of productive.

I've never ran a tractor with a root rake, (I assume you mean moldboard mounted) but wondering if that would be a worthy investment to both clean up, and initially break the ground? Dozer has a tilt blade and sharp corner bits and planning to use that a lot to break roots to push the stumps over on some of the larger trees. Nothing is hardwood any longer and almost all is less than 24" in trunk size. We had the oak, and hickory harvested several years ago and used these funds to build the storage building there now.

The adjoining farmland has since changed ownership and no access through the clearing any longer that existed since 1969 when this property was initially purchased. The new owners are not easy to get along with and most neighbors have ostracized them. We are landlocked on three sides with the only ingress/egress path being the county road bordering the front of the property.   

cleanup all the roots and mess the best you can and run an offset disk over it simila to the one in the video above. clena up root on top again... Then disk again with a finishing disk and plant. If you continue to disk each year and don't run anything with shovels you'll pull up a minimum amount of roots and eventually 5-10 years later, those roots will desompose and be gone.

If planting to hay, it's even easier becasue you only have to work it once for about 5 years to seed your hay mix. Wiht hay you would want to do a good job of cleaning up root on top so you don't run them throguh your hay mower.

[QUOTE=DiyDave]If you can't find a root rake or a disc harrow, a good ripper, on the back of that dozer will pull out big roots real nice...[/QUOTE

My parts tractor has most of a ripper assembly on the rear still. The The tractor hydraulic valve, and ground tines are long gone, but those could be replaced easy enough. I'm not sure what kind of wear is in the framework however as never looked.

I almost feel there is enough need a root rake could be justified as they look to be something that is fairly easily mounted and dismounted to the blade. Most look to be about 12" depth of raking and about 1.250" AR400 steel constructed. I see them ready made on ebay and a few other sites.

[QUOTE=200Tom1]Codger. We took moms farm out of CRP last year. Fsa office recommended beans the first year. This ground was some of the first to go into the program over 40 years ago. Mom had the trees dozed off and burnt. We rented it to a progressive young farmer. He came in and sprayed, then no tilled beans on 160 acres. He said he had a fantastic crop of beans. Mom limed the ground, something I would recommend you have checked out. He planted corn this year and will again next year. His corn crom started out looking great, but we sure need a good rain on it. [/QUOTE

For years we could not grow grass on the three acre flat area of the front of this property at all. When we harvested the hardwood back in about 2012 and opened it up quite a bit, we had several loads of lime hauled in and limed this area almost complete each year for the next three years. It grows grass readily now, and is manicured well. We did not till or do anything to the ground except broadcast spread the lime and seed with the Case VAC tractor kept down there. That tractor was our mower and workhorse for many years and now retired.

I expect this rear acreage we are conversing about will be about the same to get back to growing something besides weeds.....

I know what you are saying, but the point I was raising is there is going to be very thick sod in the area that is not disturbed taking out trees. A regular disc harrow is going to barely scratch that sod.

Spray it asap with roundup that will get the sod rotting down.

Cut a decent road in.

Hire someone with a nice heavy disc chop up the smaller roots and so forth.   Most of the older smaller discs simply don’t weigh enough.   

Go a couple years of corn till things rot down some.  BTDT  Hayfields you want putting green smooth 

Once you get it broke up use a field cultivator to shake it apart.  

Lars(wi) wrote: Just to throw this out, does the timber have value?

No, I don't believe so; it is just soft maple and other soft woods. There are some red oak sapplings, and we have been attempting to transplant them, but still quite small.

steve(ill) wrote: you might check with the local tree cutter crew... Maple is used for furniture, pallets and other.. The might be willing to cut them down and take the logs ( get some $$ or just free _) so you dont have to stack and burn........ easier to push the branches up into a pile afterwards.. Tell them to leave the bottom 5 ft for stump removal with the hoe or dozer.

That is an idea. We had a pretty difficult time with the hardwood citing limited access for equipment, but we don't have that access available any longer. If I get a road cut in and the creek bridged, the possibility is there for certain.

This is my project "Man Lift" I'm currently working on. Main lift cylinder leaks badly so sending it in for rebuild. Hope to pick it out this morning while still cool outside with the skid steer. Photos were snapped yesterday after I was really tired working in the direct sunlight most of the day:

I welded these grab hooks onto the boom forward of lift pin mounting and offset the hooks 15 degrees leaning in at the top, and 25 degrees in at the bottoms to lessen the angles pulled upon by the bridle chain attached to my Mack winch tractor:

This actually seemed to work pretty well and is very stable with the rotation lock engaged. The tractor is butted against the rear counterweight and the cable is one inch so quite a lot of strength there:

Again, hoping to pick the main lift cylinder out this morning but it is very heavy. I think 8" bore and about 40+ inches of stroke with a 3.50" rod. Now is the time I wish I'd gotten off my "duff" and put the freshly rebuilt engine back into the forklift.....

Working by my lonesome so all three of my personalities come to bear, I get things done albeit slowly.

Most every time my son has been down there cutting trees they get wrapped around and into the others in close proximity so planning to take this down there and "top" them first.

Skid steer does not have the capacity to pick the cylinder out. I tried and could only lift it just off the lower trunion mount but no further. I'm going to attempt to borrow a forklift and use the extension I build for this purpose from a section of old 4" I beam and a grab hook welded on. Here is the test jig with it clamped to my skid steer forks. Easily lifts rear wheel clear of the ground without budging the cylinder:

Thanks for the comment on the rigging. One of these days I'll learn to trust my welds.....

If you are going to use your dozer to take trees down, the old times here rather have the whole tree than a stump. The idea being the top of the tree provide extra leverage to help pull the tap root out of the deep rooted trees. The excavator it doesn't make that much difference. Not that hard to dug down and cut roots off a stump. Just things to consider as go forward. 

Decided against borrowing a forklift after remembering just how unfair the payback requests were the last time. Instead, went out behind the building and into the trees got my old crane truck running which has been setting dormant four years or so. Had to touch up the points to get spark and the carburetor will need rebuilt tomorrow so it will continue to run, but it started relatively easy and I was able to massage it towards the building.

Hydraulics livened right up but I need to get a pail of hydraulic oil tomorrow as still short some. I put this truck together back in 89 from a 56 IH S-160 pole setter, and this 65 R-190 which was a single axle road tractor. The RD-450 gas engine runs well, (usually)  and doesn't use oil. The boom swings 90 degrees to each side and back in 2004 I was loading scrap cars and the left outrigger/stabilizer sunk suddenly and over the truck went. It was slow so I was able to jump clear. Nothing damaged except truck and pride with that one. I have a photo of that on the office wall at the shop. I righted the truck with my skid steer with a fork under the upper boom and up and back onto the wheels she went. After refilling the crankcase it fired right up and I went into the shop and cut the crushed door off. Really rough old truck but still usable. I swung a lot of cabs with this truck prior to having the shop gantry crane.

 Once I get this going again steady it will pick that cylinder right out and swing it clear.

Got the boom up to this point but can't keep the truck running any longer:

Pulled carburetor and it's a mess internally. And to think I rebuilt this in April, 1992:

After an hour or so in the Methylene Chloride bath:

I'll glass bead the iron castings tomorrow and it will look quite nice. All passages blow clear now.

Hope to have it back running tomorrow and pick the cylinder clear of the chassis as the rebuild shop is set to pick it up on Tuesday sometime.

Air compressor will require a rebuild gasket set as far too much of the gaskets came apart during disassembly. I scraped mating surfaces clean and was able to free up both unloaders, and unloader caps as they were stuck from the out of service duration. The compressor was getting slow to build air for the last several years so this may have been an upcoming problem regardless.

steve(ill) wrote: the more TOYS you got, the more REPAIR work to do.......... always something !

Oh man.....

steve(ill) wrote: the more TOYS you got, the more REPAIR work to do.......... always something !

That has got to be one of the truest statements I have ever read!!!