Wood Chipper

[Sir Henry]

I had a lot of dead and dying trees removed and they left a lot of branches and saplings for me to clean up. I can wait five years and the weather will take care of the problem however I don’t want to wait. What I need is get a chipper and help it along. I’ve operated big commercial ones so I’m familiar with them. What I don’t know about is smaller home ones. Anyone have experience with say a 25 horse diesel one?

[The Happy Kaboomer]

Iffen ya got a tractor.............Get one that runs off the PTO.........They don't choke on the bigger stuff.

[Mags]

I have a 'Bearcat' with blower attachment. 3pt hitch PTO driven, requires a tractor with a minimum 25hp. I used it for a couple of seasons. Found it was better use of my time to just burn the piles I had staged for the chipper.

[Hatchdog]

As mentioned above a PTO chipper is a consideration particularly since you already own the tractor. My neighbor has one he runs off his tractor which is about the same size as yours. He and I did a bunch of clean up for another neighbor a few years ago using his PTO chipper and it was impressive. It seems like green limbs chip much nicer than dead limbs which shatter as they go thru the chipper. Still does the job tho…

[Sir Henry]

I thought about a PTO chipper mainly because they run off diesel tractors and not gasoline. The downside is I can’t use the tractor for others things while chipping.

[Sir Henry]

Here are some of the limbs although overall this is just 5% of what needs chipping.

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IMG_3842.jpeg (4.14 MiB) Viewed 2645 times

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

I have the same problem and have considered a chipper, but what do y'all do with all the chips once you're done?

Right now, I'm just cutting the limbs good enough to stack flat in the woods.

[Sir Henry]

I have the same problem and have considered a chipper, but what do y'all do with all the chips once you're done?

Right now, I'm just cutting the limbs good enough to stack flat in the woods.

I leave the chips where they lay as it helps keep the weeds down. A neighbor asked me for any extras.

[GeoBoy]

Any chipper works great on green wood but old dry wood is going to dull the chipper blades quickly and require lots of horsepower and resharpening of the chipper blades.

[Mags]

Here are some of the limbs although overall this is just 5% of what needs chipping.
...

Those are some pretty hefty limbs. I'd drag them to a burn pile location off the grass and burn them.

[Mags]

I have the same problem and have considered a chipper, but what do y'all do with all the chips once you're done?

Right now, I'm just cutting the limbs good enough to stack flat in the woods.

Garden ground cover for weed control.

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

I have the same problem and have considered a chipper, but what do y'all do with all the chips once you're done?

Right now, I'm just cutting the limbs good enough to stack flat in the woods.

Garden ground cover for weed control.

Would that be for a Vegetable Garden?

[Mags]

I have the same problem and have considered a chipper, but what do y'all do with all the chips once you're done?

Right now, I'm just cutting the limbs good enough to stack flat in the woods.

Garden ground cover for weed control.

Would that be for a Vegetable Garden?

Landscape and vegetable. I use drip line everywhere for watering including the vegetable garden. So chips go between the rows and around individual plants without blocking water flow. If you water by open trench then wood chips just dam up the trench. In the Fall the chips get rototilled into the ground and become mulchy soil by Spring.

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

Interesting. Around here we still have but used to have many saw mills, with plenty of sawdust and chips available, but no one ever used them in gardens. About the only people wanting some were the horse owners. The bulk of the chips went to industries in tractor trailers.

[dave77]

I have a 'Bearcat' with blower attachment. 3pt hitch PTO driven, requires a tractor with a minimum 25hp. I used it for a couple of seasons. Found it was better use of my time to just burn the piles I had staged for the chipper.

My property is just inside the "Growth Management Boundary" so no outdoor burning allowed and the county has just put on the annual county wide burn ban due to fire hazard (which is a good thing) that will be in affect until at least October. We burn after the ban ends and we've had some rain. Keep the fire small and burn at night.

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

We have burn bans here too at certain times of the year as well in extreme droughts, but I don't burn at all here where we are at. As time goes on, there are more and more cases of people getting charged for any fires getting out of hand, even if it is just woods.

I won't press my luck, like a friend of mine did. He set a big piles of slabs on fire on a nice quiet wet day once and didn't a big wind kick up soon after. He had to sweat it out, but got lucky and learned to never do that again, lol.

[Sir Henry]

Here are some of the limbs although overall this is just 5% of what needs chipping.
...

Those are some pretty hefty limbs. I'd drag them to a burn pile location off the grass and burn them.

I’ll burn the biggger stuff in a fire pit. We can’t burn most of the summer. Most burning occurs when there is a foot of snow on the ground.

[Mags]

I have a 'Bearcat' with blower attachment. 3pt hitch PTO driven, requires a tractor with a minimum 25hp. I used it for a couple of seasons. Found it was better use of my time to just burn the piles I had staged for the chipper.

My property is just inside the "Growth Management Boundary" so no outdoor burning allowed and the county has just put on the annual county wide burn ban due to fire hazard (which is a good thing) that will be in affect until at least October. We burn after the ban ends and we've had some rain. Keep the fire small and burn at night.

We're still outside the Urban Growth Boundary. So we can burn during the two burn seasons, except when the fire danger is high or when DEQ calls an air quality alert.
1. October 1 to Dec 15.
2. March 1 to June 15.

[Mags]

Interesting. Around here we still have but used to have many saw mills, with plenty of sawdust and chips available, but no one ever used them in gardens. About the only people wanting some were the horse owners. The bulk of the chips went to industries in tractor trailers.

Big business here in landscape supplies.
Here are some of the local offerings.
https://www.bestbuyintown.biz/products- ... lch-chips/

We usually buy a 1/2 n 1/2 mix of bark nuggets and cedar chips.

I've also from time to time had the power company unload shreds/chips at our place when they are in our area trimming back limbs from the power lines.

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

We do have Mulch! I just hauled in a pick-up load for my wife's flower garden.

Don't know if she would like misc species of chips though, especially yellow pine. No one uses them around here. I have heard of people using Cedar chips though. Brick chips too.