Pineland
Well-known member
apical meristem":22v33br5 said:Did you finish picking up limbs, roots and sticks by hand or with a root rake?
How did you burn off the wood piles? After you burned the wood piles a few times, what did you do with the dirt in the piles with the burnt logs?
I am searching for some before photos of the upload portion so you can see how bad this area was in the beginning. This area has a sandy base that slopes to a very rich and fertile loamy area, which grew sweet gum and tallow trees. We initially started making large piles of logs with left over trees and got an initial burn with would reduce the pile any where from 50 to 60 percent. We would push the piles together and then burn again. Next we would condense two piles together and burn again, until we had single small but long windrow of very small sticks and debris but was mostly dirt. I used a drip torch to light off each pile and it paid for itself many times over by conserving fuel.
I would spread the dirt and ash from the piles until it was somewhat level and rerake if necessary. I have a root rack on both my tractor and dozer. But on the upland project most was done with a dozer root rake and a 30 hp tractor with a front end loader. Bermuda grass really took off in the ares where there were burn piles. I think I can count the number of times on one hand that we walked or drove in front of loader picking up sticks.