Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Acreage Mangement Question

Enjoying the 15.4 acres I bought in East Texas for 4 months now and have a question that has this city boy quite perplexed. The property is a rectangle and the entire southern edge is virgin woods and very dense with oaks, cedar elms, and heavy scrub. How and with what type equipment do I maintain the fence row from dis-appearing behind all this heavy growth?

I had a property management for 105 acres with dense oaks, poison oak, manzanita and madrone mostly, some junk pine. I wanted a clear fence line on my side of the fence, and the owner did also. For the start I used a brushcutter, weedwhacker to clear out the undergrowth. Just to access it. On large trunked trees I just cleaned them up from trunk base to 7 foot with a chainsaw. Junk trees got dropped. Paint stump killer usually tri on those. After clearing a five foot path, I usually hit it with gly blend then a preemergent. Only other choice would have been to dozer it but owner wanted a narrow path for his ATV and to keep majestic oaks intact. A good plan I think. Ended up being very nice, clear fence line and a real nice inspection path for ATV.

Poppy, that's great advice from PF. I'm learning a lot of that sort of stuff, too, with our place that we've had for just under 11 months now. I'll probably be purchasing a commercial grade weed whacker and just mounting a cutting blade on it. I used a friend's Stihl FS90R with a blade for several months at our place and it worked like a charm. I could cut through 3 inch thick brush/saplings without much trouble.

I mentioned this is another post some time back and PF and others said they used similar setups, though with much heavier duty versions. For guys that are doing it on a regular basis, no question their approach is right on - get the bigger machines. My own philosophy, as a couple of days per week farm worker is to just buy as much power as I can reasonably afford, recognizing I'm not going to be using it to the extent the pros do. For that reason, the FS90R is probably what I'll get, though there are also some other great brands out there and I'm sure folks here will share their thoughts. That's the extent of my experience, but it was positive and that is the direction I'm leaning.

For anything heavier than that, as PF said, get a good chainsaw and go to town. I bought a 16" Husqvarna and love it, though I kind of wish I had gotten something with a 20" bar just for added versatility and the fact that it's just more manly than a 16 incher!

Obviously, be ultra careful with all those tools and really make sure you know how to use them safely and effectively because there is zero forgiveness for careless operation. I cut and sold firewood with a buddy all the way through college with a high school buddy of mine and got pretty comfortable with chain saws, but I still err on the side of caution every time I fire it up.

Good luck. I'll be interested to read what the others have to say.

For a DIY own property, you can get away with a lot less equipment. For someone that does it for a living, I go for professioanl grade overkill. I too use the Stihl, but a 450. I have all the blades, even a scratcher like a circular saw blade. A bicycle handle, and a comfort double shoulder harness. Customer really want to see that when you are billing hourly.

My saw is an ancient Shindiawa 680. But close to bulletproof. I also augemented my income by cutting firewood and cooking wood for selling. Ran all the way up to a 30" bar. Far too dangerous, way too impractile. No matter how much penile envy I received, it was not worth it. I'm all the way down to a 18" bar. Big saw, little bar. Cuts extremely fast. Never throws a chain with so little sag. That 30" came flying off one time and just missed my forearm. Never used it again.

Which brings us to Todd's very good point on safety, how I forgot to mention that is inexcusable. This equipment is unforgiving. You rarely get a second chance or a harmless oops. At the end of a long day once I got distracted at the very end splitting oak on a 50 ton splitter. My hand was between the wood and the backstop and I was so very lucky the piece was small and split with my hand there. I would be Capt Hook today if not. I always wear industrial gloves, a hard hat, full visor, the screen kind because I can't work with fogged up shield. And full coverage mouse ears. Steel toe full length work boots also. Can't tell you how many times debris has hit my facemask, or safety goggles. Branches fell on otes, or whipped into them brushcutting. Don't just ignore the pages of safety instructions in the front of the operator manual. Live by them. Never work tired, distracted or inattentive. Never.

A big +1

If you're running a chainsaw, I strongly recommend Labonville 6-ply full wrap chaps. Take a look at the video and see why.

Chaps test

I bought mine for less than $100.00. I feel that it's real cheap insurance.

I've got a small echo arborist saw CS-320? that takes from 12"-16" bar, and a Dolmar 7900 that will take from 24"-36" bar. I can cut good sized trees with the Oregon 32" Reduced Weight bar and a skip chain very quickly. The Dolmar is a 6 hp saw. There's a Silver Maple that is down but not in pieces at the local streets & sanitation yard. They let you in to cut up firewood no charge. I guess it saves them on disposal fees. Nobody's wanted to tackle this one, it's been there for a month and hasn't been touched. IIRC, it's 65" thick at the butt and 42" across where they sectioned it. That'll be fun to try and move around once it's slabbed in 16" pieces!

I agree with PF. If it was my property, and I didn't want to screw around a lot, I'd rent a dozer and make a path as close to the fence as I could without boogering up the fence 1 blade wide. Then use the other equipment that's been mentioned for upkeep.

I have sprayed my fences with a Remedy/Generic Roundup mix for the past 3 years. This year I sprayed them with Sahara and the ground is sterilized.

Is the heavy growth on your side, the other side, or both? On my property, I am the dense growth obscuring the line. I just keep the old posts and line marked and dread the day I need to clean my side to put a new fence in. One neighbor keeps his clean by just mowing a couple times a year along the fence line. I am slowly cutting trees from it with a large Echo brushcutter for the small stuff and a chainsaw for the larger. Chaps and one of those forestry hard hats with the integral face shield and ear protection are worn always. I prefer a fitted glove and currently use LumberWorks Chainsaw gloves that have kevlar in them. An abrupt change from forest to pasture is no good for wildlife; so I am trying to change it over to a wider forest edge to draw in more whitetail and birds.

I go through a lot of Remedy.

Tanks everyone for the insight, especially on the safety issues. I have been behind the saw quite a bit lately cutting unwanted willows off the dam and out of the edge of the pond, but the hard work ahead is going to require more equipment and power. What I wasn't clear about is that the heavy growth is on the OTHER side of my fence, on my neighbors property. He owns 300 acres behind me and doesn't plan on doing anything with it, so it is rustic to say the least. My side is all pasture, that is why I am trying to figure how to keep it manageble and not slowly swallowing my fenceline. I know it will be a regular addition to my things to do check list. Again, thanks for everyones input and suggestions. It is invaluable advise. While I'm on the subject, for 5 acres of pasture, 5 acres of oak woods, a 3 acre pond and 2.4 acre homestead, what size tractor do ya'll think I need. I'm getting by with a 26/54" JD mower, but know I have to upgrade to manage. Any suggestions for my size property?

Poppy, as for the neighbor's side of the fence, I'm sure you realize that you can't spray or cut his stuff down, but I think it's a generally accepted legal principle that if a neighbor's vegetation (trees, bushes, etc) cross onto your property, you are well within your rights to trim the encroaching portions so your property is clear of them. As a way of just being neighborly, you may well want to just have a friendly conversation with him one day and let him know you were thinking about doing some fence line maintenance and that you wanted to make sure he was okay with the fact that you plan to trim back his stuff where it reaches over the boundary. I have always found it's best to at least start by being friendly as it very often saves heartache later on!

On the tractor side of things, you'll no doubt get a lot of opinions. I think the answer depends a lot on what you'll be doing at your place. Part of me can see you getting a small-ish tractor (25 - 30 hp) and being just fine, though I firmly believe that you're always ahead to get the biggest you can reasonably afford. I don't know that I've ever heard someone say they bought too much tractor! In your case, you may feel that way if you buy something north of 75 horses, but you probably won't go there anyway!

At most, I suspect there's nothing you couldn't do if you had a 30 - 35 hp tractor with a good front end loader (FEL) and a 6 or 7 foot brush hog. You'll be able to to an awful lot of general grounds maintenance with that kind of power, from mowing, to stump pulling, etc. A smaller - 25 horse - tractor may struggle a little on some tasks, but again, depending on what you will realistically be doing, it may be all you'd ever need. You can always trade up later if you see that you are regularly doing tasks that outpace your tractor's capabilities.

Keep your mower for the yard area around your house and just rough cut the rest. If you want, eventually, you can get a finish mower for your tractor and even get rid of the small JD, but that wouldn't be necessary in my opinion. I have a Cub Cadet 54" garden tractor that I do all of my mowing with right now and I probably mow about 4 acres all together out of my 30 acres total. My plan is to eventually pick up a 30 - 35 horse tractor and do most of the mowing with that (plus in the future I'll be mowing a lot more of the total acreage) but will keep my CC for the yard when we build out there.

You'll get a lot feed back on tractors and you may want to search the forum as there have been some really good threads on tractors in the past year, and probably beyond.