Brush Removal
Bill Smith
Posts: 1
Hello all,
Im in the process of building a house on a 1.5 acre lot. They are only clearing a small portion of it. The remainder of the land is covered in think brush. I was considering buying a John Deere 1025 with back hoe and front loader subcompact tractor but would rather not spend the money. As a test I just bought the Stihl Kombi system with the Hedge Trimmer and Pruning Saw. While that will work for cutting the brush down to the ground, I need a way of ripping the trunks / roots out of the ground. There is nothing on the land with a trunk thicker than 2 inches. What would you recommend I use to till the land so that these weeds / bushes never grow back. Once cleared I will be replanting trees and covering the ground with wood chip.
Posts
Just check whether there is anything worth keeping. There may be some decent small trees in there.
If there are no trunks thicker than 2" maybe you could just cut them down to the ground and leave them to rot, which they'll do in a few years. You could plant your new trees in the gaps between.
Two problems I can see:
1) Some trees my come back as coppices - but if they're cut off young they'll give up before too long
2) Honey fungus (Armillaria) may infect dead stumps - and this could spread to new, living trees and kill them, which would spoil your whole day.
There's bound to be someone out there who can enlarge/contradict this.