Have a question about newly cleared land

If you’ve got the gas money, whether you do it right or not, you’re going to likely have some fun. Remember that.

After a hard day, I like to bush hog and fight all the noise with noise.

What are you wanting to use this land for? If for hunting/wildlife I would let it be for the most part.

How big is the field.?

I had a 5 acre field I had mulched,about a million sweetgums came up.What I’m did is bushhog a opening in the middle ,about an acre and then several lanes from the edges coming into the middle,from W,N& E sides.
Stand is on S side.

In my experience disking with dead saplings on the ground doesn’t go very well.
My plan was to rake the ground with a box blade with the scarifiers dropped
down to break up the soil a little to plant seeds but it’s been so dry I didn’t bother,
Maybe next year.

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How big is the field.?

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The field is 20 acres but only 7-8 acres cleared so far.

I’m working on some of the ruts today with the excavator

Every stump in the ground that can re sprout is going to in the spring. You need to figure out to mitigate for that because nature is going to nature.

Smoke it with imazapyr and glyphosate in the spring as soon as it starts to green back up. After one summer of hot temps those stumps will be crusty and broken down a lot more and much easier to disk up/ work the soil.

Unless you have a heavy duty (and heavy) site prep type disk, disking up green stumpage and fresh mulch is going to be hell and prepare yourself for something to break more than once.

In my experienced opinion, mulching is not always the best way to clear land if your goal is to put a plow/harrow in the ground asap. It's great for a year out after you can treat stump regrowth and have them sit and dry out for a summer, or if you're converting it to pasture land, but not so great for immediate tillage with standard equipment found on most recreational properties. It's better to have the slash bulldozed and windrowed/buried and have a clean slate. Of course that has its own down side because of topsoil removal and bare earth in hilly terrain.

Every property that is able should keep a good fire lane around the property. Once you kill the re growth of woody plants you can put the land on burn cycles and watch the flora and fauna flourish from the native habitat.

I do have a 300 g 3 pt sprayer that I plan to spray everything with in the spring.
Also, my disk is quite heavy. The disk themselves are around 1/2” thick and the disk is probably 2000-2500 lbs. May not be quite that heavy but it is very stout and 7ft wide.

You’ve pretty much confirmed my thoughts that this would not be ready next year. I didn’t think it would be just hopeful imagination.

I’ve spent my time this morning building burn piles of the downed trees.

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The deer will get far more from browsing these areas than they will from the food plots. More importantly, these thick areas are what will keep bucks on your property instead of your neighbors. When the trees start to grow/thin out I would even go back in and hinge cut several areas to increase the amount of browse.

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The entire bottom that I own is 40 acres. I plan on having 15 of it cleared the remaining 25 will be heavy thick stuff. I’ve got plenty of bedding areas.

I do have a water source. There is a 10 acre lake on the property.

Also the sweetgums that you see in the pic I’ve been cutting them down and spraying t the stump with crossbow.

You have two options here, a quick and more expensive field or a cheap field that gets right in three or so years.

For the quick option you’ll need to pile/burn, root rake, test/treat the soil, and then disc and plant what you want.

For the cheap option you don’t touch it at all, and then burn each winter until the field establishes on its own. The roots in the ground and everything else will slowly burn off each year. Once the field is cuttable grass then you can disc and plant.

No matter which way you do it, you will eventually wind up with the same outcome.

Do you really want all those trees? Consider that also, I’m assuming you left them for a reason. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with small trees than to deal with those small trees in 5 years and 10 years

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Do you really want all those trees? Consider that also, I’m assuming you left them for a reason. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with small trees than to deal with those small trees in 5 years and 10 years

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I’ve been cutting them down and spraying the stump with crossbow. I cut most everything in the first 50-100 yds y-day.

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Some of those trees look like sweet gum?

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There are a few pines and oak and everything else are sweet gums.