Dozing Cedar V Cedar Mulching

I have a piece of property North of Lampasas and want to clear some cedars. In general is it cheaper to doze / stack / burn or to do cedar mulching? Most of the cedar is re-growth from the past 10 years so not really huge stuff. Also, how long does the mulch stay on the ground before it breaks-down enough for grass to grow so you do not just see cedar chips everywhere. At a friends place the cedar mulch was so big I think it is in year 10 and still not broken down.

Any recommendations for dozing / burning or cedar mulching?

THanks

Burn it.

Yep. Burn it. The power company comes out about every 5 years to cut and mulch along our cross country powerline ROW. That mulch never really breaks down. Best thing if cedars are small, is a controlled burn. Check you county extension agent. There are burn guys that can help out. Of course you'd only burn after a good soaking rain.

If it’s rocky doze and burn it, if not use knives and a good operator and you will be better off mulching it. This is what I do 365 days a year and you can’t compare what a ROW clearer does verses a contract job with a “Good Operator” We get paid to lay it down for ROW work, we use carbides as we make more money this way and not actually mulch it. Contract jobs we use knives and on your size trees it will be growing grass in 6 months roughly and if you want it sooner have it raked and it’s instant grass. PM me if you have any questions, we don’t go that far south unless it’s over 100 acres but I’ll gladly answer any questions you might have. The equipment and operator are crucial to getting your desired results though so holler if you need advice.

Thanks for the replies.......sounds like may do a combination of both.

Doze it stack it and burn it. Be done with it.

I’m a fan of dozing, stacking, & burning when convenient

Nobody's mentioned skidsteer with a sheer, stacking and burning? Is it just too labor intensive, therefore runs the hourly rate up (if contracted)? I imagine it's like a chainsaw - fun to cut and a PITA to stack.

Maybe this is what Ol Thumper is referring to as "knives"? (Plus I wanna ask - you work on Christmas Day? )

I do agree, the mulch spots take a good 10 years to break down.

I've had some cedar pushed/dozed for a new road fence and entrance, but I don't think it was the best operator. I've seen better. Wasn't much smoothing back over the divots.

I've learned the size limit of cedar my JD5055 will push over, but I need some sort of spike or narrow shovel to attach. Just using the corner of the bucket is awkward and probably isn't good to torque the bucket arms like that.

X2

I have cleared it with skid steer and burning. I think dozer would be faster. IF you have a HOT fire(lots of grass and no moisture), burning is 100% effective.

THanks for the replies. Likely doing a combination of the above.

FYI I run a D5,6 and 9 for land clearing along with mulchers and my previous post stands. I don’t care who the dozer operator is your going to have a semi decent mess of your hands afterwards to contend with, if it’s mulchable I recommend it 99% of the time for anyone wanting land ready for use after the jobs complete.

The combo is probably best, and it depends on the type of cedar. Lampasas probably has both types, blue and red berry. Blue berry can be controlled with mulching, but red berry will grow back if mulched and needs to be grubbed or pushed.

Grass will start to grow pretty straight away after mulching, but it will take a long time for it to fully cover the mulch and the mulch to degrade. Mulching is pretty quick. Dozing/grubbing with the burning seems to take longer, and if it's rocky can really tear up the soil.

depends on your budget and how large of a place you are trying to do ... we are normally on a shoestring budget and we lease a skidsteer with shear (with foam filled tires or tracks, a MUST have) for a long weekend (pickup Friday, return on Monday morning) or if we have a lot to do, do a weekly (or monthly) lease. If you have a couple of people that can operate the machine, you can get a lot knocked out fairly quickly. We also have a tractor with FEL that is used to push up brush piles and rows ... that's part of my wildlife management exemption plan though (small game & song bird habitat, cover protection for turkey). Most that we have leased could do up to about a 12" base cedar (juniper) and try to shear as close to the ground as possible.

we have worked at 5-6 different ranches, mostly in northern Burnet county, just south of the Lampasas county line, with decent success. One ranch, we ran 2 skid steers for several weeks, pushing large brush piles and then the LO hired a guy with a big articulating mulcher that merely mulched the large piles.

If you have much to do go with one of these, we run smaller machines as well but this size can cover 25 times the ground as a skidsteer in a days time

How many acres are we talking?

They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Is erosion a concern?

I"m 100% against mulching cedar

looks good for a few months then turns gray and you have a carpet of cedar chips choking out the grass. Also creates a big fire hazard

As opposed to standing live cedar? Either way, it is a fire hazard!

There are many different ways to get it done. In my experience, you can get 20 different people out there to tell you how THEY would manage YOUR property, and each one will give you a different answer, and every thing someone else tells you is wrong!

Thump - can you explain a bit?
What's the difference in carbide teeth and "knives" on the mulching head?
So a mulching head with carbide teeth doesn't mulch?

Yes sir they do to an extent but I’d compare carbides to using a hammer and beating the tree into pieces and as it’s wrapping around the drum thr are metal tabs sticking out of the frame that shred it into big chunks. Knives are just that, it shreds the tree into a fine mulch as it’s cutting it up and not using brute force to get it down leaving the ground looking like a flowerbed if that’s the desired look. Personally I hate carbides, thr slow and leave a mess behind but they last a long time and therefore cheaper to run and they can run in rocks aka the hammer part. Knives do not like rocks lol Knives will outperform carbides at least 2 to 1 in a days time as well but the maintenance overall is greater on them and the cost to run them. I feel knives are a win win, customer gets a better/faster product and thr easier on the equipment but I have all of the above for different uses.

My opinion comes from finding nasty cedar choked places and improving them for resale.

Mechanically the shears is the best. 2nd the dozer and a extremely distant third is mulching.

When you shear them you leave a stump sticking up, dozing leaves a mess to clean up and mulching is resell ready most of the time. I do all of the above every day all day and it sounds like either you’ve been dealing with less than desirables or simply going the cheapest way out every time because we flip land on the regular and I wouldn’t put a dozer on anything were reselling period unless it’s 100 year old Bois-Darks in bottom land. We all have our opinions and I completely respect yours but I’ll have to whole heartily disagree with you on that statement.

Thanks for the explanation and clarification!
I didn't really realize the difference, even though I've seen blade type heads and pointed stub type heads.

Wow

I have a Kubota SVL95-2s track skidsteer
I want to add a mulcher

What do you recommend ?

For personal use or for commercial use? Personal occasional use you will be ok but commercial use I’m sorry to say your in for a bad experience due to the Kubota’s not being near heavy duty enough to take the abuse. CAT’s are about $30k more for a reason, I’ve tried them I know first hand lol. If for personal use find a good used Fecon DCR or Dennis Cimaf. A new ones about 34k but a used one can be found for about 10k less. I think I have 2 Fecons and 1 or 2 Cimafs for skid steers and I prefer the Fecon for being indestructible but the Cimaf for working on. Mulchers are like everything else, you get what you pay for and if you go cheap you will eventually pay one way or another

thank you,

it's for personal use on my land

My plan would be to saw them all off with a rotary skid steer mulcher, and then stack with a grapple and burn. I know that’s time intensive but it eliminates the chip issue, stump issue, and divot issue of the other methods

We use this rig to saw them down like your describing but it’s not the most efficient way,