Land clearing in KY

[ddd75]

sounds like it uses a torque converter. i'd use the brakes to stop the machine before reversing on a steep hillside. or try to lightly roll it into a tree.

pretty hard on any dozer to reverse up / down those hills like that. i had a jd 450 w/ hydrastat and it did it pretty well ( i was clearing in lewis co) . i have a torque converter dozer now and i imagine you'd tear it up pretty good not relieving that pressure before reversing.

just my thinking

 

[ddd75]

oh and the only way I found to get a good stand of grass on those hillsides was to spread seed.. and then unroll bales on top of it down the hillsides. then I'd just walk through and throw the hay all over.

not very fast but when your dealing with steep hillsides doing things by hand is about the only option.

your going to have briars taking over pretty quickly even with a good grass stand. I had 500 acres in hillsides and ridges and it was a massive amount of work to keep the hillsides clear. weedeating 100 acres of hillsides that you cant even ride a quad on isn't very fun. they are woods for a reason

Best thing is to get some goats to help keep that stuff under control but you'll have to have guard animals to keep the coy dogs away.

 

[Margonme]

Haha yes it has joysticks! It has 4 levers. The front two have positions of high neutral and low for left track and right tract, the two levers closest to the operator have positions forward neutral and reverse for each track. There is a 5th lever for hi-lo. I find it tricky to operate on the hills. When you put it in neutral it is supposed to gradually slow that track down, but on a hill it rapidly increases in speed, causing you to rotate the opposite direction you thought.

I am surprised grass came up. I thought it would mostly be saplings.

You must not have gotten much dirt in the piles or I would think you would need to go back and clean them up later. I had a friend clear a small area. As those trees rot down there is a 12"-24" berm of dirt that is showing up. I am sure some if from the rotten wood, but some is soil.

Mine was hydrostatic. Direction joystick on the left with acceleration button. Blade joystick on the right. Very precise. D3G is a high technology machine. You can become amazingly precise with those controls. I believe I could roll a chicken egg with out breaking it. The directional joystick could reverse direction in a millisecond. I decelerated before reversing direction.

There is no dirt in my windrows. I rolled the trees I pushed out to break off all the root ball. It was my dozer and I was working for myself so I had that luxury.

ddd75: if you prepare a seedbed, put down your seed properly and track it in, you can achieve good germination and a rapid stand of grass. I have some steep hillsides and never had any failures. I did not use any form of mulch.

 

[bigbluegrass]

sounds like it uses a torque converter. i'd use the brakes to stop the machine before reversing on a steep hillside. or try to lightly roll it into a tree.

pretty hard on any dozer to reverse up / down those hills like that. i had a jd 450 w/ hydrastat and it did it pretty well ( i was clearing in lewis co) . i have a torque converter dozer now and i imagine you'd tear it up pretty good not relieving that pressure before reversing.

just my thinking

I believe you are correct, it uses a torque converter. How do you normally relieve the pressure on the torque converter? This is my first time running a machine like this. I sure don't want to damage anything. What I was doing was to get lined up with the trees I wanted to push down and try to head straight down the hill into them, push the trees down the hill, after pushing some I would slow the throttle and put the f-n-r shifters in neutral and then in reverse. Then increase the throttle until it started moving backward, line up with another tree while backing up the hill - using the h-n-l levers, then decrease the throttle and shift the f-n-r back to f and the h-n-l into l and head back down the hill at the targeted tree. It does seem to pop some if it is shifted quickly with the f-n-r or the h-n-l levers, but not always. The brakes do work and I use the manual brake to stop when going downhill. I haven't used the power brakes much, because they put the transmission in neutral before applying the brake and the couple times I tried them it took off down the hill on me. I believe this machine has two transmissions, one for each track. I would think it has two torque converters also? Maybe? Any tips on running something like this would be appreciated. I am about as green as they come! :mrgreen: Thanks!

My son would love to get goats, I just need to put up better fence before we get into that. I have those multiflora roses all over. They are awful. Spraying them seems to be the best way to keep up with them now.

 

[ddd75]

sounds like it uses a torque converter. i'd use the brakes to stop the machine before reversing on a steep hillside. or try to lightly roll it into a tree.

pretty hard on any dozer to reverse up / down those hills like that. i had a jd 450 w/ hydrastat and it did it pretty well ( i was clearing in lewis co) . i have a torque converter dozer now and i imagine you'd tear it up pretty good not relieving that pressure before reversing.

just my thinking

I believe you are correct, it uses a torque converter. How do you normally relieve the pressure on the torque converter? This is my first time running a machine like this. I sure don't want to damage anything. What I was doing was to get lined up with the trees I wanted to push down and try to head straight down the hill into them, push the trees down the hill, after pushing some I would slow the throttle and put the f-n-r shifters in neutral and then in reverse. Then increase the throttle until it started moving backward, line up with another tree while backing up the hill - using the h-n-l levers, then decrease the throttle and shift the f-n-r back to f and the h-n-l into l and head back down the hill at the targeted tree. It does seem to pop some if it is shifted quickly with the f-n-r or the h-n-l levers, but not always. The brakes do work and I use the manual brake to stop when going downhill. I haven't used the power brakes much, because they put the transmission in neutral before applying the brake and the couple times I tried them it took off down the hill on me. I believe this machine has two transmissions, one for each track. I would think it has two torque converters also? Maybe? Any tips on running something like this would be appreciated. I am about as green as they come! :mrgreen: Thanks!

My son would love to get goats, I just need to put up better fence before we get into that. I have those multiflora roses all over. They are awful. Spraying them seems to be the best way to keep up with them now.

sounds like you're doing it right.. best thing is just try to throttle down all the way before you shift but on a hillside you'll still have pressure. you'll need to push up against something (tree, brush pile) and take the load off..

watch out for acorn poisoning on the cattle if you have a lot of oaks.

 

[ddd75]

Haha yes it has joysticks! It has 4 levers. The front two have positions of high neutral and low for left track and right tract, the two levers closest to the operator have positions forward neutral and reverse for each track. There is a 5th lever for hi-lo. I find it tricky to operate on the hills. When you put it in neutral it is supposed to gradually slow that track down, but on a hill it rapidly increases in speed, causing you to rotate the opposite direction you thought.

I am surprised grass came up. I thought it would mostly be saplings.

You must not have gotten much dirt in the piles or I would think you would need to go back and clean them up later. I had a friend clear a small area. As those trees rot down there is a 12"-24" berm of dirt that is showing up. I am sure some if from the rotten wood, but some is soil.

Mine was hydrostatic. Direction joystick on the left with acceleration button. Blade joystick on the right. Very precise. D3G is a high technology machine. You can become amazingly precise with those controls. I believe I could roll a chicken egg with out breaking it. The directional joystick could reverse direction in a millisecond. I decelerated before reversing direction.

There is no dirt in my windrows. I rolled the trees I pushed out to break off all the root ball. It was my dozer and I was working for myself so I had that luxury.

ddd75: if you prepare a seedbed, put down your seed properly and track it in, you can achieve good germination and a rapid stand of grass. I have some steep hillsides and never had any failures. I did not use any form of mulch.

with the high erosion rate of that land i wouldn't leave any uncovered. I'm sure you know what 1 good rain storm would do to a open hill side. the hay would be a very small expense compared to the soil that will leave that land. There's only about a 1/4 - 1" of top soil covering that and it'll leave in a hurry.

 

[Jabes0623]

Did you graze your new pasture this year?

I noticed on your picture taken after you planted grass, that you had a pile of stuff in the middle of the picture. Was that after you burned it? Did you need to go back and clean that up later?

No we didn't graze it, just let it grow all year. Matter of fact I just brush hogged it off the 1st time a few weeks ago.

Yes there's still some tops & stumps that didn't burn but mostly what's left is piles of dirt from the dozer & boulders. I doubt that will ever get cleaned up probably just let a tree line grow up there. What the pics don't show is how steep that little area is, nearly a straight drop from the field into the ditch we pushed all the tops, stumps & boulders into. Way too steep to brushog & keep cleared off so no point cleaning it all up.

 

[bigbluegrass]

Haha yes it has joysticks! It has 4 levers. The front two have positions of high neutral and low for left track and right tract, the two levers closest to the operator have positions forward neutral and reverse for each track. There is a 5th lever for hi-lo. I find it tricky to operate on the hills. When you put it in neutral it is supposed to gradually slow that track down, but on a hill it rapidly increases in speed, causing you to rotate the opposite direction you thought.

I am surprised grass came up. I thought it would mostly be saplings.

You must not have gotten much dirt in the piles or I would think you would need to go back and clean them up later. I had a friend clear a small area. As those trees rot down there is a 12"-24" berm of dirt that is showing up. I am sure some if from the rotten wood, but some is soil.

Mine was hydrostatic. Direction joystick on the left with acceleration button. Blade joystick on the right. Very precise. D3G is a high technology machine. You can become amazingly precise with those controls. I believe I could roll a chicken egg with out breaking it. The directional joystick could reverse direction in a millisecond. I decelerated before reversing direction.

There is no dirt in my windrows. I rolled the trees I pushed out to break off all the root ball. It was my dozer and I was working for myself so I had that luxury.

ddd75: if you prepare a seedbed, put down your seed properly and track it in, you can achieve good germination and a rapid stand of grass. I have some steep hillsides and never had any failures. I did not use any form of mulch.

with the high erosion rate of that land i wouldn't leave any uncovered. I'm sure you know what 1 good rain storm would do to a open hill side. the hay would be a very small expense compared to the soil that will leave that land. There's only about a 1/4 - 1" of top soil covering that and it'll leave in a hurry.

I have found the same thing here - very little top soil. I doubt I have 1" any place that is wooded. The 1/4" is more typical. The cedar areas seem particularly low in top soil. My soil test doesn't show organic matter, but I suspect it is very low. I would like to start testing for organic matter. I thought a cover crop would be a good idea to hold the soil, suppress weeds and build some organic matter. I figured I could roll it down with the loader or graze it, depending on the needs. It sounds like Margonme had good success leaving the ground bare for awhile. Margonme, did you have any hard rains when your ground was bare? Did your pasture wash bad?

 

[bigbluegrass]

Did you graze your new pasture this year?

I noticed on your picture taken after you planted grass, that you had a pile of stuff in the middle of the picture. Was that after you burned it? Did you need to go back and clean that up later?

No we didn't graze it, just let it grow all year. Matter of fact I just brush hogged it off the 1st time a few weeks ago.

Yes there's still some tops & stumps that didn't burn but mostly what's left is piles of dirt from the dozer & boulders. I doubt that will ever get cleaned up probably just let a tree line grow up there. What the pics don't show is how steep that little area is, nearly a straight drop from the field into the ditch we pushed all the tops, stumps & boulders into. Way too steep to brushog & keep cleared off so no point cleaning it all up.

It sounds like you are pretty happy with how yours turned out. I know yours was only open for a few months in the fall, but did you get any heavy rains on it before you got the grass planted? Any concerns with erosion while it is bare ground?

What I am clearing is steep enough that I don't plan to mow it. Some of it I may be able to mow, but I don't plan on mowing. I use rotation grazing now with daily moves and plan to expand that. I could probably work around piles of rocks, stumps and boulders if I had to, but right now I am thinking I would like to keep that all cleaned up as I go. Maybe clear for a few days and burn for a few days. Then I could clean up what doesn't burn before planting and moving on.

 

[Margonme]

Mine was hydrostatic. Direction joystick on the left with acceleration button. Blade joystick on the right. Very precise. D3G is a high technology machine. You can become amazingly precise with those controls. I believe I could roll a chicken egg with out breaking it. The directional joystick could reverse direction in a millisecond. I decelerated before reversing direction.

There is no dirt in my windrows. I rolled the trees I pushed out to break off all the root ball. It was my dozer and I was working for myself so I had that luxury.

ddd75: if you prepare a seedbed, put down your seed properly and track it in, you can achieve good germination and a rapid stand of grass. I have some steep hillsides and never had any failures. I did not use any form of mulch.

with the high erosion rate of that land i wouldn't leave any uncovered. I'm sure you know what 1 good rain storm would do to a open hill side. the hay would be a very small expense compared to the soil that will leave that land. There's only about a 1/4 - 1" of top soil covering that and it'll leave in a hurry.

I have found the same thing here - very little top soil. I doubt I have 1" any place that is wooded. The 1/4" is more typical. The cedar areas seem particularly low in top soil. My soil test doesn't show organic matter, but I suspect it is very low. I would like to start testing for organic matter. I thought a cover crop would be a good idea to hold the soil, suppress weeds and build some organic matter. I figured I could roll it down with the loader or graze it, depending on the needs. It sounds like Margonme had good success leaving the ground bare for awhile. Margonme, did you have any hard rains when your ground was bare? Did your pasture wash bad?

Shawn, I was very lucky. I did get some heavy rains but it occurred when the clearEd areas were rough. Thus, the soil eroded was trapped on site. I did not get any washing rains on the graded and seeded phase. I admit I had some good luck. I did not get any bad washing.

 

[ddd75]

some pics of my old place..

 

[Margonme]

ddd75. Nice pictures. Is that in Lewis County? You mentioned Lewis County in a post above.

 

[ddd75]

yep. lewis.

 

[Margonme]

yep. lewis.

That must be the part of the county on the Rowan County side where you start getting into the foothills of eastern Kentucky.

Kinnikinnick Creek has to be one of the nicest streams in Kentucky. I am sure you know the area.

 

[bigbluegrass]

ddd75: Nice pictures!! You've got some steep ground there, as you mentioned. Are those pictures of areas you cleared? What kind of trees are you clearing out? Right now I am mainly after the cedar stands, but I do have some hardwood trees I will need to clear before long.

 

[ddd75]

i cleared some, but not much. the old man i bought it from cleared everything and had it looking like a park when i bought it.

i'm not sure if there was a cedar on the whole property. the other side that you're not seeing was all in a extremely well taken care of oak woods. not even a honeysuckle in the entire place. i ended up selling the place and they logged out the front, they got over 200k for the timber and there was still a bunch left to cut. i wish i would of cut it when i bought the place but didn't.. ended up losing 60k when i should of been up about 150k.

oh well '



margonme.. i was right off the carter co line. i could ride my quad over there in about 20 minutes. i lived right near the kinni.

 

[Margonme]

i cleared some, but not much. the old man i bought it from cleared everything and had it looking like a park when i bought it.

i'm not sure if there was a cedar on the whole property. the other side that you're not seeing was all in a extremely well taken care of oak woods. not even a honeysuckle in the entire place. i ended up selling the place and they logged out the front, they got over 200k for the timber and there was still a bunch left to cut. i wish i would of cut it when i bought the place but didn't.. ended up losing 60k when i should of been up about 150k.

oh well '



margonme.. i was right off the carter co line. i could ride my quad over there in about 20 minutes. i lived right near the kinni.

Beautiful country. Carter County: home of Tom T. Hall. IMO, the best country music storyteller who ever lived.

Bigbluegrass: Eastern Red Cedar dwindles out as you get into the Appalachian Foothills.

 

[bigbluegrass]

It sure has been rainy since I pushed these trees over. The ground is about saturated on that hills side. Rain is in the forecast every for the next 10 days. I am starting to wonder if pushing those trees over last month was such a good idea. Oh well, too late to change that now. What do I plant in the spring to get a quick handle on erosion? I was thinking maybe oats and sweet clover in March. Or do I just let it go and clean it up when things dry up? Thoughts?

 

[Bigfoot]

I'm in Ky, but the lay of my land is nothing comparable to that. I bet a dry spell, is just devastating on those slopes.

 

[Margonme]

It sure has been rainy since I pushed these trees over. The ground is about saturated on that hills side. Rain is in the forecast every for the next 10 days. I am starting to wonder if pushing those trees over last month was such a good idea. Oh well, too late to change that now. What do I plant in the spring to get a quick handle on erosion? I was thinking maybe oats and sweet clover in March. Or do I just let it go and clean it up when things dry up? Thoughts?

You cannot work it wet. In the future, plan your clearing as a summer activity. Leave it rough and throw up some berms perpendicular to the slope. Then grade it and seed it between the 15th of August and the 15th of September. That will give you the least exposure to erosion. Problem I had with spring seeding was that the ground was too muddy to get equipment on.