Rent/Hire/Buy a Dozer

[TexFarmer]

My farm of ~100 acres is being overrun by black locust trees. If you are not familiar with the species these are thorny hardwood-like trees that grow up to 6 feet per year. If you cut them down at the base of the trunk the hardwood is heck on a chainsaw and the thorns are heck on your arms and they re-grow sprouts from the roots with fury so the only way to get rid of them is 1) spray them with Remedy/Relegate when they are small to kill them or 2) rip them out of the ground with something like a dozer and then spray any sprouts that come up. The majority of my pastures look like the photo below that I took today below. Aside from clearing brush I also have another big need for a dozer. In my neck of the woods in NE Texas we're having a time with hogs tearing up pastures. When the hogs come it looks like carpet bombs have been dropped down on my fields. The best thing for that is a dozer to smooth out the ruts and an AR15 with night vision. With all that in mind, would you consider hiring a dozer operator to come in and pile up the trees and smooth out the hog runs from time to time, rent a dozer for a couple of weeks and do it yourself, or if you had the money would you buy a dozer to keep on the farm whenever you needed it? If you went with buying a dozer, what size would you consider given my situation? I don't have experience operating a dozer nor working on heavy equipment so that's something to keep in mind, though I'm fairly handy and could probably figure both out.

 

[Cross-7]

My 2 cents
I'd have it sprayed with an airplane first
I hired a dozer to clear some ground but it really tore up the ground.
I had a guy come out with a skid steer and a mulcher
It did a really good job and didn't tear up the grass, but left lots of wood chips, but I'm hoping it feeds the soil as it breaks down

 

[M.Magis]

As far as the locusts go, hiring a huy with a skid steer mulcher is the way to go. If you doze up 500, 5000 will sprout a month later. They'll still need mowed a while, but the less you can disturb the soil the better.
Spraying would probably do well too, though I've just not seen it done here.

 

[Bigfoot]

That picture makes me sick. I bought my 260 acres almost 30 years ago. It looked equally as bad as yours. I have fought those things, for most of my adult life.

I just hired a dozer. Didn't have much money, when I started (still don't of course). Renting not an option here.

You also need to make the big seed producers target number one. It actually hadn't been that long ago, that I finished knocking out the last of those.

The remedy/diesel basal treatment works well. No matter where the tree is, I'd go ahead, and get it killed.

Your also wasting your time spot spraying the little ones, if you don't do it right. I'd get some cide kick 2 cuticle penetrating surfactant, and 3 ounces of remedy to the gallon. That'll kill em grave yard dead. I've used lots of other stuff, and they always sucker out, and come back. Grazon next seems to kill them as well.

I wish you luck. I hate the things. They will be sprouting back for years to come.

 

[D2Cat]

Might be able to find someone who does the work commercially using a skid steer and a tree saw.

I hired a guy with that equipment to get rid of Red Cedar, Locust and Osage Orange. He sprayed (from the seat of his machine) the Locust and Hedge. since he didn't need to spray the Red Cedar he could cut about 300 trees an hour. He charged like $60 an hour and had a quick attach fork he could push a pile up in short order.

Used Tordon and Remedy mixed as the spray, I think.

He cut it on the dirt. I cut hay (grass!) on it the next year with a Hesston PT10. Folks would stop and ask how many sections I broke....

 

[Nesikep]

You can find old dozers with some life left in them pretty cheap. We paid $3500 for our Allis HD6 which is a pretty good size, and it came with a root rake and 25,000 lb winch... We did a paint job on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfvUrzqyj4

Would a herd of goats keep the suckers in check once they're trimmed down? They usually love shrubbery.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Following ...

I hate locust trees.

I do think I remember someone telling me only the males (?) have thorns...so, if you get rid of the thorns they won't have fertile seeds.

...dunno...

At the time I was heading this, I didn't have a big need to pay attention ... so that's from a very faulty memory.

 

[ddd75]

i've cleared locusts on a few farms now. Ripping them completely out they won't come back. *large ones


looks like you have some pretty young stuff there.. hard thing about that is you have to really rip the ground up to get those little ones out. Best bet is to bush hog and spray the smaller stuff.. anything one will push over. Then come back and spray them several times. spaced out a week apart between sprayings.

looks like someone has cut a bunch and all those small ones are growing out of roots.. going to have to bushhog now and then to keep them in check.

did you just buy this place or how did it get so out of hand?

 

[dun]

I would hire it done. An experienced operator can get a whole lot more done in a shorter period then someone that is just learning the ins and outs. If you bought the equipment you would have something else to put on your resume though

 

[ddd75]

just saw a nice 450C JD 6 way in the paper for 9500. wouldn't take long to pay for that vs. hiring someone. especially with over 200 acres.

 

[TexFarmer]

i've cleared locusts on a few farms now. Ripping them completely out they won't come back. *large ones


looks like you have some pretty young stuff there.. hard thing about that is you have to really rip the ground up to get those little ones out. Best bet is to bush hog and spray the smaller stuff.. anything one will push over. Then come back and spray them several times. spaced out a week apart between sprayings.

looks like someone has cut a bunch and all those small ones are growing out of roots.. going to have to bushhog now and then to keep them in check.

did you just buy this place or how did it get so out of hand?

The land sat vacant since at least 2013. I inherited it last year but it was in a town a little far out from where we were living. Now we live on the land and I'm preparing to get a handle on the situation.

 

[cfpinz]

Never dealt with that type of locust but we do have a track loader and a skid steer loader on the place. The skid steer can do 100 different jobs and there's so many attachments for them it'll make your head spin. The track loader can only do a handful of different jobs, but it does them very well. If I had to choose between the two, I'd buy the skid steer.

 

[Bright Raven]

Easy for me. That is what I had here to a large extent. I bought a Cat D3G LGP 2005. Cleared it myself in about 12 months. There were a lot of areas that had slumped so it needed to be graded.

I am pleased. Would do it again. Sold the dozer for $500 less than I paid and put 1600 hrs on it.

 

[TexFarmer]

Easy for me. That is what I had here to a large extent. I bought a Cat D3G LGP 2005. Cleared it myself in about 12 months. There were a lot of areas that had slumped so it needed to be graded.

I am pleased. Would do it again. Sold the dozer for $500 less than I paid and put 1600 hrs on it.

How did the D3G handle the brush clearing and grading? Would you recommend a D3 or step up to a D4? Did your dozer have rippers on the back?

 

[Bright Raven]

Easy for me. That is what I had here to a large extent. I bought a Cat D3G LGP 2005. Cleared it myself in about 12 months. There were a lot of areas that had slumped so it needed to be graded.

I am pleased. Would do it again. Sold the dozer for $500 less than I paid and put 1600 hrs on it.

How did the D3G handle the brush clearing and grading? Would you recommend a D3 or step up to a D4? Did your dozer have rippers on the back?

The D3G LGP 2005 is a 6 way blade. You can look up the weight but bigger than many think. joystick blade and direction control. You will be running fine in 16 hours of operating time. Great grading dozer.

Did not have rippers and never had a need. You can turn the blade up and use the corner bit as a ripper of sort. I actually put in a couple underground electric wires by ditching with it.

 

[skyhightree1]

I wish I had some land with black locust they make good fence posts theres fence post around my great grandfather put in the ground still solid. That being said I have my own equipment to clear but personally would buy my own equipment and keep it vs paying someone and not having anything really to show for it but cleared land. You can always sell the equipment down the road.

 

[Bright Raven]

I wish I had some land with black locust they make good fence posts theres fence post around my great grandfather put in the ground still solid. That being said I have my own equipment to clear but personally would buy my own equipment and keep it vs paying someone and not having anything really to show for it but cleared land. You can always sell the equipment down the road.

Agree

 

[greybeard]

Hogs aren't helping for sure. They disturb the ground and the roots and the plants respond by sending new shoots up everywhere the ground and roots are disturbed.

Like has been said, concentrate on the seed producers but not so much the smaller plants become seed producers.
I'm not much on mowing invasive woody plants. Cut one down, 6 will appear for it's wake/funeral. Been my experience that cutting them encourages growth and resprout with the resprouts developing some kind of natural defense or mechanism that makes them nearly immune to herbicide..
Spray. Spray like the wind.
Been nearly 3 years since I hooked on to a brush hog.
Bigger trees, I either cut and immediately did stump treatment or hack and squirted the standing live trees with remedy/diesel. It's labor intensive but it worked.

I used to have a hog problem here too but as I got the brush under control and almost all clean pastures, they don't come here anymore. Maybe the sounders moved on or the neighbors keep them killed off but for whatever reason, I've only seen one or 2 stray hogs in the last 2-3 years and they didn't stay.

 

[Cross-7]

Again I'd have it sprayed first and kill it.
Way less regrowth to deal with after clearing

 

[Bright Raven]

Again I'd have it sprayed first and kill it.
Way less regrowth to deal with after clearing

That might be a good idea. I had to mow it often until the regrowth was killed off.