Clearing Land

[Cedarsavage]

So I have 14 acres, and want to put buckwheat and rye on 1/4 acre of it. I have a couple trees to drop but it’s mostly clear except the pungy sticks left from cutting poplar saplings and worse than that raspberries that take everything over. Looking for advice on how to get it ready for planting. Right now I got two ideas.
1. Rent a skid steer on tracks $1k for a weekend and use the bucket to rip as much out as I can and do minimal leveling. The leveling isn’t really even necessary. Or
2. Buy a gas rototiller and keep tilling multiple times to kill the roots of the raspberries.

I’m hoping the buckwheat will choke out the undesirables and then replant with rye in the fall. I really don’t wanna spray with glyphosate so I’m trying to avoid that. I can afford the $1,000 for the skid steer but I hate to dump that sort of cash if I don’t have to. What do you food plot gurus think?

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Try to find someone with a forestry mulcher. That's what I did on my place in MO. That thing took down everything in it's path. Then keep it mowed.

 

[Skerhunter]

I would look at what attachments are for rent with the skid steer. Lots of options for clearing trees/brush. Then follow up with a disc or tiller if needed.

For the small area you need done it maybe worth it to hire it out (~$150/hr for a few hours is all it would take).

 

[omicron1792]

I would look at what attachments are for rent with the skid steer. Lots of options for clearing trees/brush. Then follow up with a disc or tiller if needed.

For the small area you need done it maybe worth it to hire it out (~$150/hr for a few hours is all it would take).

Agree. Cheaper (and prob better) to rent it out.

I rent a skid at my farm for a month at a time. There is a learning curve If you don’t do it for a living.

 

[rookieforever33]

I used to use my garden roto tiller to till a plot that size. Always took 2 passes at 1 1/2 hours each. Stumps would shear pins constantly adding to that time if I did not avoid them. I suggest renting the skiddy. You dont necessarily need the track model. The implement needs to go slow anyway

 

[Maverick1]

So I have 14 acres, and want to put buckwheat and rye on 1/4 acre of it. I have a couple trees to drop but it’s mostly clear except the pungy sticks left from cutting poplar saplings and worse than that raspberries that take everything over. Looking for advice on how to get it ready for planting. Right now I got two ideas.
1. Rent a skid steer on tracks $1k for a weekend and use the bucket to rip as much out as I can and do minimal leveling. The leveling isn’t really even necessary. Or
2. Buy a gas rototiller and keep tilling multiple times to kill the roots of the raspberries.

I’m hoping the buckwheat will choke out the undesirables and then replant with rye in the fall. I really don’t wanna spray with glyphosate so I’m trying to avoid that. I can afford the $1,000 for the skid steer but I hate to dump that sort of cash if I don’t have to. What do you food plot gurus think?

Not sure what type of equipment you have, but you could look into frost seeding and planting food plots without a tractor/ATV. Has worked well for me under the right circumstances. Glyphosate is typically needed with that approach to keep the weeds manageable. (If you have the equipment, time, and $ though, the tractor or equipment way works, too.)

 

[Macintosh]

Not necessarily what you asked, but food for thought—around me raspberries are great wildlife cover and food, including for deer who browse the leaves pretty heavily as well as bed in the bramble patches. Rather than replace a zero-maintenance native food source, why not cut more trees elsewhere for a food plot rather than replacing whats already there?

 

[rookieforever33]

When I bought my property I was excited by all the rasberries. I have never seen deer do anything but avoid them. Trails loop around them with a wide berth. Cut them back and they grow right back, especially at the edge of mowed trails. Those thornes rip off and bed in your skin also. Im not saying they dont have a place. Just saying deer or myself do not love them like I thought we would.

 

[30338]

Hit it with glyphosate in the spring, hit it again 4-6 weeks later. Throw in a variety of wheat, or cereal rye in late August and brush hog all the dead stuff down over the seeds. Google throw and mow for more ideas of low cost successful food plots.

 

[Teodoro]

We took out a blackberry patch about that size a few years ago. Paid a neighbor who was good with a skidsteer to do the work. I didn't have to go through a learning curve, and it also meant I didn't have to bother renting and transporting the equipment myself. For something I was going to have to pay for one way or the other, I thought it was a much better deal.

 

[Legend]

So I have 14 acres, and want to put buckwheat and rye on 1/4 acre of it. I have a couple trees to drop but it’s mostly clear except the pungy sticks left from cutting poplar saplings and worse than that raspberries that take everything over. Looking for advice on how to get it ready for planting. Right now I got two ideas.
1. Rent a skid steer on tracks $1k for a weekend and use the bucket to rip as much out as I can and do minimal leveling. The leveling isn’t really even necessary. Or
2. Buy a gas rototiller and keep tilling multiple times to kill the roots of the raspberries.

I’m hoping the buckwheat will choke out the undesirables and then replant with rye in the fall. I really don’t wanna spray with glyphosate so I’m trying to avoid that. I can afford the $1,000 for the skid steer but I hate to dump that sort of cash if I don’t have to. What do you food plot gurus think?

You should embrace herbicide use. Hit it at least twice this spring before you get equipment in. And then after the ground is prepped promote the weeds, trees, and raspberries to grow one last time.....and hit it again with herbicide.

You really want to eliminate all competition before you put your preferred seed down. Farm it.

 

[Random Dude Guy]

I agree with what everyone else is saying, if there's a local guy with a mulching head, he could have that done relatively quick. Or, by looking at the photo, a front brushog implement on a rented skid steer wouldn't take long at all either.

However, as someone else mentioned, keep as much cover and brush as possible. Food is but 1 aspect to seeing deer. The other two, which are more likely to hold deer in your area, is water and cover.

Maybe you know this, maybe you don't. No need clearing 5 acres or something if you're planting on 1/4.

 

[Arcola]

I’ll second the forestry mulcher. There is no better tool for that job. I would check local classifieds for someone doing it for hire with their machine though. By the time you rent a skid and the mulching head AND get the hang of using it, you’ll be well over $1k.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Forestry mulcher

 

[copenmechanism]

Not necessarily what you asked, but food for thought—around me raspberries are great wildlife cover and food, including for deer who browse the leaves pretty heavily as well as bed in the bramble patches. Rather than replace a zero-maintenance native food source, why not cut more trees elsewhere for a food plot rather than replacing whats already there?

Somewhat unrelated, but I’ve always been a little confused by hunters who preach that wildgame is free-range, organic meat which eats a varied and native diet — and then go and remove native food sources (with glyphosate and other non-organic herbicides) and then replace them with commercial mono crop seed mixes that need to be supplemented with more synthetic fertilizer. And all that in order to keep those free-ranging deer free-ranging on their property.

If you’re only after growing and attracting big deer, I get it and I’m not judging, but it’s kind of funny when you stop to think about it.

 

[SwiftShot]

Hire someone with a Mulcher. Contact your forestry department, some states will help pay as it helps with fire prevention.

 

[Speaks]

I had a guy with a mulcher clear a couple acres of saplings and it left so many tiny stumps that it took years of fighting through trying to use a brush mower before it became mostly ok. Did some a year later with a back hoe and it was cheaper, faster, and better results right away.

 

[MallardSX2]

Try to find someone with a forestry mulcher. That's what I did on my place in MO. That thing took down everything in it's path. Then keep it mowed.

Don’t use the forestry mulcher, unless you’re prepared to spend a $hit load of money on lime. Mulching makes the soil highly acidic.

I would get a dozer or a very large skidsteer in there and clean off the nonsense and then run a subsoiler for a few hours.

Then run a landscape rake for a few hours to clean it up.

Then do a soil test.

Then lime and fertilize

Then rototill or disk. I prefer a tractor rototiller as it makes an awesome seed bed.

That mulcher is a no go in my book for sure though. It just makes a huge freaking mess that takes years to compost.

 

[LostArra]

Don’t use the forestry mulcher, unless you’re prepared to spend a $hit load of money on lime. Mulching makes the soil highly acidic.

I would get a dozer or a very large skidsteer in there and clean off the nonsense and then run a subsoiler for a few hours.

Then run a landscape rake for a few hours to clean it up.

Then do a soil test.

Then lime and fertilize

Then rototill or disk. I prefer a tractor rototiller as it makes an awesome seed bed.

That mulcher is a no go in my book for sure though. It just makes a huge freaking mess that takes years to compost.

I guess it depends on what you're mulching and who is running the mulcher but this has not been my experience. They are perfect for large blackberry thickets but herbicides will still be needed later when they start sprouting.

For trees especially eastern red cedar/junipers mulchers do leave a huge mess if the operator is in a hurry but with cedars the dozer just creates an enormous pile that has to be burned and a big cedar fire is an inferno and can be tough to manage. The mulcher operator I use is an absolute surgeon with that thing. He piled the cedars in one spot then mulched that spot (out of the plot) down to dust. It took a while but that area is all back to native grasses.

Your method sounds ideal if you have ready access to a dozer, subsoiler, landscape rake, tractor and a tractor tiller. That's a lot of equipment for a 1/4 acre plot.

As mentioned earlier, round-up and a brush hog then throw and mow would probably get the plot done well enough to keep the deer happy all at minimal expense.

 

[Davyalabama]

Wow, such a diverse group on what to do.
1) Deer love new shoots of raspberries (and blackberries). I'm just saying, don't totally destroy them.
2) Get with your ag extension person in your area, what deer eat/need, where I am is different from where you are.
3) I understand not wanting to use glyphosate, but it will help, even if you tear them down, it still needs spraying to fully kill it all.
4) Have a plan with your ag person to know what the deer want for each season, play the long game, not just the short game. (What do I mean by that, you may need to plant some fruit trees (apples, plums, pears, chestnut) You may need, know I know you need, summer and winter plots.
5) Go on facebook or ask around, you may find someone with a tractor and implements that could do what you want, down here, it's $50 an hour for tractor work, not $150.
6) I know it is only 14 acres, but, if you can have a place right in the middle of those 14 acres that is a bedding zone (never hunt this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Kill them on the fringes of your property, leave the center for eating, browsing, lounging during the day. Put up some cell cams around this area, also, use solar chargers, don't disturb them. Some of it can be thick, some not, leave them alone. I know, I know, it's only 14 acres, and I said, if you can pull it off.
7) Have you a buffer zone between you and neighbors and have feeding plots for you. Develop a funnel from neighbors to your plots. Fell some trees and leave them, leave some thick raspberry thickets, and cut some holes for them to get through, etc.

My biggest questions, What are you wanting out of this 14 acres? Are you only wanting 1-2 deer a year and it doesn't matter buck or does? Are you wanting a huge buck every 2-3 of years? Are you just wanting a nice buck every year and maybe one doe? Are you going to turkey hunt? Are you going to trap? Are you going to coyote hunt in the offseason, maybe kill one if he comes by during deer season? There is a lot to consider on what you want.

Also, send in samples of your land to a local ag college, I think it is like $7 bucks per sample where I am, you would need about 3 samples for 14 acres.

The ag extension folks are pretty good where I am, very helpful, very easy with their time. The better prepared with what you have, what you want, etc. when you talk to him the better information you will receive. It also isn't just a one time talk, you can talk to them multiple times as you do things. If you have a good one like we do, he might even take the time and drive out, how friendly are you, are you someone he would want to help?