Wood chips from powerline cleanup crews

[greybeard]

They are FINALLY cleaning off limbs and even cutting down trees along the powerlines nearby and chipping up all the limbs. They give the chips away each day to keep from hauling them offsite.
Is their any good use for the wood chips?

I have a soft spot along my main access road (which is also a powerline ROW)
Not deep, and not too long, but always messy. I've put iron ore and crushed limestone rock on it lots of times and it just gets pushed down into the muck.

Would the chips give it some body? Roadway gets used daily.

 

[Ebenezer]

Will make it worse. Get some nonwoven 8 oz. geotextile and put down, cover with aggregate of your choice and it will be gone.

 

[SBMF 2015]

They redid the high way next to a neighbor's feed lot. They got forty semi loads of wood chips. They built a huge mound in the middle of a dirt lot.
Now because they took those the hwy dept routinely brings them tandem loads. They bed with them .
Wood chips work really well to compost dead cattle too.

 

[Stickney94]

I have a pallet factory nearby that sells waste wood that is ground up/chipped. It makes VERY good bedding. I don't think they would work for your application though. But if they are free who knows, haha.

 

[shaz]

could make a good compost with some grass clippings mixed in I guess.

 

[greybeard]

Will make it worse. Get some nonwoven 8 oz. geotextile and put down, cover with aggregate of your choice and it will be gone.

No, it won't. Did that a couple years ago when I asked about the same area and the fabric, along with the limestone just mashed on down in the muck along the tire track area. It gets wet from underground lateral flow out of the nat forest. Like a seep spring except the water emerges to surface farther away, out in the pasture.

 

[Ouachita]

...........Would the chips give it some body? ..............

No, just soul.

 

[chaded]

The wood chips isn't going to work (at least for long) for that.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Use them for your base in a bedpack.

 

[Allenw]

No, it won't. Did that a couple years ago when I asked about the same area and the fabric, along with the limestone just mashed on down in the muck along the tire track area. It gets wet from underground lateral flow out of the nat forest. Like a seep spring except the water emerges to surface farther away, out in the pasture.

Dig it out wider then the road through the mud and fill with big rocks, small boulders. Then build your road over that. Probably not practical for a farm road.

 

[greybeard]

Use them for your base in a bedpack.

Don't do bedding here in Central East Texas.

 

[coachg]

Mulch around flower beds , etc . Can't think of any uses for cattle . Not going to help you on your road .

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Don't do bedding here in Central East Texas.

Is that possible, is there really a world where you don't have to use bedding??

 

[M.Magis]

Some local 4H groups may be interested for bedding. Our group gets a load of bark mulch each year and we bed the fair stalls with it.

 

[Ebenezer]

No, it won't. Did that a couple years ago when I asked about the same area and the fabric, along with the limestone just mashed on down in the muck along the tire track area. It gets wet from underground lateral flow out of the nat forest. Like a seep spring except the water emerges to surface farther away, out in the pasture.

You do not have a soft road only. You have a yielding foundation.

 

[kenny thomas]

Is that possible, is there really a world where you don't have to use bedding??

Don't think I ever seen anyone using bedding here.

 

[Beefeater]

How long would it take to compost down there? Had a friend take about 100 dump loads 3-4 years ago. Has composted down really nice and made some fantastic soil for the yard and garden. I took half dozen or so dump loads a couple years ago and mixed in with manure in lot to compost worked really well, just wasn't worth the effort unless they weee brought to me for free. The small limbs were a bit of a PIA on single chipped loads.

 

[Redgully]

They used wood chips for road base at a garden festival last year, by the end of the week it was a sludge pit.

Makes good mulch for garden but causes nitrogen draw down.

 

[Stonewall Joe]

wood chips will rot and turn into mush

 

[Ridgefarmer63]

Lot of good advice. I'll second it. I tried that once in my barnyard when we had a logging op. done. Looked awesome once everything dried out, but you will regret it during the wet/mud season.