Clearing Fields?

[burmjohn]

Anyone ever clear their own fields?  Did you remove all the stumps or just cut them down as low as possible?

[NYBowhunter]

You will need to have someone come in with a dozer to remove the stumps this way you will be able to turn the ground.

[burmjohn]

Yeah, I figured that.  We shall see, thats down the road anyways.  We will be consumed with just getting tree stands up this year and working on the cabin once its up.  Down the road once we have a garage, my dad would really like to invest in a nice tracker with the small back hoe, then we could dig them out ourselves.  We have about 120 acres, so doing 2 to 3, 1 or 2 acres plots would be ideal.  Nothing to big now that I been researching the work involved.  Perhaps one bigger plot for just hay / bedding area that doenst need maint?

[sampotter]

You can skimp on the stumps a bit by cutting them really low and only using a disk for tillage. Not ideal, but if you don't have a dozer, it is a good option.

[BIGHUNTER2700537]

I work on an farm from when i was 8 to 18 and mainly what we did to get stumps out is just hook on to them with the tractor with a chain and yank them out or sometimes we would burn them and it would make them easily to get out.  This may not work for big stumps but wee jus had smaller trees. If we had to clear big areas with big trees we would get the dozer.

[growalot]

Iget alot of stumps and BIG rocks so I use the backhoe on our tractor one year after cutting....the roots are a tad weaker then....our bigest problem in clearing are rocks...I hand remove all bigger rocks and then rake the smaller ones....here is a field I finally cleared enough to plant corn in last week

[orion]

growalot,

What type of rake did you use? Looking to do something like that by me but was wondering if those landscape rakes worked. Is that what you used?

[growalot]

For those piles you see...just by "picking rocks" by hand and using the blue wheel barrel ...but in the narrow ...smaller plots I used both a landscape and a stone rake....for the bigger areas I am going to due a few more areas and then rent a york rake for the tractor...was going to buy but ...I'm cheap it takes me about 3 yrs to get an are in shape...in that time I plant buckwheat in the spring and braccs in the fall....with the exception of the corn area...by the way I plant feed corn...7.50 for a 50# bag and this is what I got from a july planting last year

[orion]

Thanks. I am getting tired of hand picking rocks and was wondering about those rakes. Whats a stone rake?

[growalot]

Thats what I call the small house hold sized steel toothed rake...not like the big closely toothed landscape rake