Small-scale site prep

[Clark]

We have some sites that we plan on thinning in the next several years. They are largely growing aspen but they should be growing...lots of other things. (Largely white pine, white cedar, some red oak and possibly other hardwoods.) After thinning we want to do site prep that will allow us to seed in the species mix of our choice.

Sites will typically be 10 acres or less and with trees left standing. We need something narrow but also effective at disturbing the soil. Then we can come in and broadcast spread the seed.

At this point we are thinking possibly an ATV size machine but a skid steer would probably be better. We have options and will choose the best for each job. However, what do we hook up to the machine to create adequate disturbance? We have considered different harrows (spring tine, chain, straight spikes or tines), discs, chisel plows, etc. I am leaning more towards a spring tine harrow or drag but really don't know.

Any experience or thoughts on this? The ground is fairly rocky but generally not with rock sticking out of the ground. 

Clark

[Riwaka]

This Will Steger vid from a few years back shows hand planting of seedlings.

I would look round to see if anyone has done some mixed replanting in the area, to see what species are growing the best together.
Maybe some seedling protectors if there is deer browsing.

Minnesota's Changing Climate - Coniferous Forest - YouTube

Should also allow for the winters getting colder  and the summers hotter. I don't know what is going to survive that.

Small Rome disc plow behind a narrow dozer with rops, if you want to till the soil and rocks.

[mike_belben]

I think id try an ATV with a chisel plow.  You can pin a sleeve hitch attachment to a ball mount, and put a winch on the rear rack to lift it.  2 ropes, bungees or chains to keep it from swinging into the tires.

[barbender]

Clark, from my totally unscientific experience on out property, which is a silty sand, is anywhere I have disturbed the soil I get a lot of bur oak, a bit of red oak and red maple regen, and some spots the white spruce seeded heavy and came up thicker than hair. Mind you, these were all spots I disturbed without any concern of what was going to grow up in those areas, the trees did it all on their own. All that said, I would think a small ASV with a tooth bar would give you the disturbance you need, and be tough. Most chisel plows and such of the size you are talking about aren't very heavy duty and I don't see them surviving even a fairly light duty run in the woods.

[SwampDonkey]

Drag an old heavy limby pasture spruce or heavy oak with a big top around behind the skidder if you want to get a seed bed. No need to plow ground up if it's old understory ground. ;D Could use a pipe harrow on a tractor.

Pipe Harrow--Interesting attachment for rocky ground - TractorByNet

Hand planting is more successful than seeding. ;)

Been on lots of skidder logged sites that have 10 x the regen of a processor/forwarder site. Most processor sites leave what is already there, and on some of our thinning ground that regen is usually old suppressed/rotten fir. Junk. ;D When skidder is used, if there is any white spruce and cedar on site, the skidder paths will fill up with white spruce and cedar naturally. My ground did. Cedar thicker than dog hair. Did some C&H plow and that filled up with cedar and white spruce where there was a seed source near by. Planted black spruce, but everything else grew up around it. A lot of it was fir on the dry ground. :D

[Clark]

One or two things which maybe I didn't make clear. These are low-quality aspen sites or plantations that we are changing the direction on them. We will be seeding in these sites after site prep so we don't need to rely on any existing trees for seed.

Barbender if you mention silty sand again I'm going to have an aneurysm! We have exactly one site in town that has any amount of sand and it's basically off limits. I had thought about the durability of the ATV sized units and while I have never worked with them it would seem likely they are the poorest quality.

Swamp Donkey wins for the most niche answer and quite frankly, one that may be the ticket for this work. It shouldn't take much to fabricate a Dixie harrow and it looks like the results are what we want. Give me a couple of years and like you, I will hopefully be able to show you how seeding doesn't work!

Any other thoughts?

Clark

[WDH]

I have you considered a drum chopper?

[Tacotodd]

Please school me. I've never heard of this thing. What is a drum chopper?

[Tacotodd]

I know I don't know  :P

[Stephen Alford]

Thought these looked neat.

ATV Mower Pro|ATV Flail Mower|Fuel Injection Honda Engine ATV Mower - YouTube

[mike_belben]

Most chisel plows and such of the size you are talking about aren't very heavy duty and I don't see them surviving even a fairly light duty run in the woods.

If i needed one it would be a bunch of flame cut tines from some huge diameter rebar scraps in my pile, welded to a pair of tandem C channel scraps with provision to pile blocks, stone or a machine tire on to tailor the ground pressure. 

[Haleiwa]

It depends somewhat on how many and how big the trees left standing are.  I once bought a 14 foot Towner from a tree planation in Oregon that was pulled with a Cat Ag tractor.  That was the transition to the Challenger series; steel tracks with a steering wheel.  he had fabricated a set of steel wheels for the disc, and could run down a row of pine stumps (it was typical light desert soil) tearing everything apart in a few passes for the planters.  Bugnot makes a grinder/mulcher that can be set to run from just under the surface to 14 inches or so deep, and will grind everything; rocks, roots, limbs, dead animals into a fine potting soil texture.  Takes big horsepower, big fuel bill, but leaves a garden behind it.  Companies like Jenkins Iron make tiller attachments for a skid loader that probably will work five or six inches deep; plenty maneuverable to work around standing trees, but won't last all that long under forestry conditions.  Do you really need to work the ground or can you use a sprayer to knock down the vegetation and plant by hand with spades through the dead mulch?  That would be the fastest and avoid potential soil erosion, and killing the understory might help keep deer from congregating to eat the new seedlings.

[barbender]

Sorry Clark, that unmentionable stuff is all I have- and for miles around, too. I dug a barrow pit and did hit an isolated ball of clay about 6' down. One ball about 3' in diameter, I was like "Oooh! Binder!" and I mixed it with my sand. That's the only clay I ever found. Absolutely zero rocks, you have to get about 20' down before you hit any of those.

[WDH]

A drum chopper is pulled by a dozer. 

https://tfsweb.tamu.edu/uploadedFiles/Landowners/Drum%20Chopping.pdf

Go to figure 6 in the link below for a pic.

Mechanical Site Preparation for Forestry in Mississippi | Mississippi State University Extension Service

[BargeMonkey]

I do alot of seed / food plots every year, aggressive grousers on a dozer are all you need 🤷‍♂️ For what your doing a small dozer with a root rake and good tracks would work the best. 

[Clark]

Thank you one and all for the suggestions!

WDH - I hadn't considered the ol' roller chopper. I don't know if that design would work on a smaller scale since it depends on weight to work. I also don't know if they make a smaller one.

Stephen - Interesting concept but I need it to disturb the soil, just a little. Not on the scale (or depth) Haleiwa is indicating. Think of a turf football field after a game. I don't need the complete disturbance of the center of the field but more than the very edges. Some soil open to the sky but not a mud pit.

barbender - I am well familiar with your country having spent a bit of my youth around Dixon Lake. Your story about the clay ball is an odd one. The stuff glaciers leave behind!

Barge - We don't have a dozer small or large. I think that might be a bit too harsh on the roots of the remaining trees. Granted, for some sites that would be the ticket but if we are only treating 10-20 acres/year we need to look at more economical options.

Clark

[mike_belben]

How about try dragging a truck tire behind a quad?  Load it with stone if it needs more bite.  You can also drill through and put bolts and fender washers on the bottom sidewall as roughers then flip it if you want smoother.  

Wont cost anything to try

[barbender]

The reason I suggested an ASV with a tooth bar bucket is because you can rent one locally for a reasonable price (think RC50) and pull it home with a pickup. If you haven't run one before, they are pretty easy to learn. Jst beprepared for a sore neck, because you'll be back dragging the teeth to do your prep. I'm sure a guy could fab something up to drag behind a quad to the same affect, 3-4 teeth to bounce around and dig in once in a while. 

[woodnie]

Just a thought. Can you spread seed before you thin the area? Perhaps the scarification from thinning would be enough to get the new chosen seeds started. If not maybe use a small/medium sized skid loader with tracks or maybe a wheel machine with chains to further stir the soil. Maybe add a spike  bar to the bucket if needed. Skid loaders can spin and turn on a dime, are amazingly versatile, and make great  scarifiers. They have enough Hp and weight to get the job done. Good Luck...

[Roundhouse]

I picked this up a couple years ago. It's an old International spring tooth drag seen here after a fresh coat of black before I brought it out to the woods. It's pretty light for light work but that's perfect for my use, pulled behind my 2WD 200cc four wheeler. I haven't used it for seeding, planting, regeneration, but for prepping woods trails. It trails perfectly behind the wheeler and cleans up that size trail nicely, for a wider trail or area I just make multiple passes. The teeth have enough spring to bounce off large roots and rocks. When working in a trail I start off with the teeth just making a little scratch then progressively set them a little deeper on subsequent trips. Once in a while I'll have to clean out the branches and leaves that build up but that's it. Small for small jobs but very economical to try. This one was about $40 at auction.

These were made to be ganged up as needed for field work so you'll see them made up in sets of 3 or 5 too.

[Old Greenhorn]

Now that was a find! I could put that to work 5 minutes after it got out of the truck and at 40 bucks it was a steel too! Lucky dog!

[Glenn]

I would andi have used a straight blade on a dozer or bob cat to clear some area for planting.  works well even after cutting   wind row up all the slash

[Gary_C]

These larger tracked skid steers are available to rent and are equivalent to a small dozer. Also there are many attachments available like root rakes and chisel plows that could be used. The chisel plows I've seen look like they are meant to pull backward but that is probably for better traction. If you are not going too deep you could probably turn the chisel points around and push forward so you don't get a stiff neck from backing all the time.

[SwampDonkey]

I picked this up a couple years ago. It's an old International spring tooth drag

Got one here, my brother resurrected it from grandfather's old loot someplace. :D

[SwampDonkey]

All you need to do is screef the duff layer to see some soil, it don't have to be plowed ground. Good grief if that's what you had to do balsam fir would be extinct. I can show you seedlings by the 100's just from my SxS wheel prints in my harvest trails. Granted they look almost like moss they are so new. Little stems and cluster of needles at the top. ;D The ground isn't compacted like cement either. Up on a knoll where I left mature ash for seed, seedlings as thick as dog hair 3 years after I cut the trash out. ;)