Slowjeep

Does anyone have experience drilling into land that's been cleared with a forestry mulcher? I'm wondering if a no till drill will go over stumps (that are flush with the ground) and wood chips/chunks.

We do forestry mulching in NW Florida and I've been interested in getting a subsoiler attachment that mulches deep into the ground (vs our cimaf head that doesn't go into the ground at all). I'm pretty sure we can no till into stumps that have been subsoiled several inches deep but not sure how it'd do without grinding below grade. Right now, people have been waiting a few months for the chips to dry and just burning them off but I think the more stuff you can leave in the soil the better it'll hold water and nutrients.

Thanks,

Jim
KW Land Works, LLC
www.kwlandworks.com/forestry-mulching

Oldtimr

If I were you I would call your states farm extension office and asked the experts. I would think a seed drill and tree stumps would not be friends but the experts could tell you.

North Texan

No-till drills are super expensive and they don't like hitting hard objects. A lot of pressure is put on those openers to enable them to do no-till seeding effectively, and hitting something hard that doesn't have a lot of give will break disks and can bend and twist the openers. The openers are designed to penetrate soil and stubble, so they might penetrate some of the wood chips, but I don't think they would do it consistently enough to justify using a drill. I think it would push and tend to clog a lot more than you'd want it do. With a no-till drill, the drill is generally running over stuff that is still anchored to the ground by a root system, and is long and thing. Corn and milo stubble get a little thick, but they are probably easier to cut through than wood. I've not every tried to run a drill behind a mulcher, but mulching isn't that popular here so I don't have a lot of experience with it. Everything here is generally grubbed and raked before a drill is run over it.

I would hate to burn the mulch because of the shading and moisture retention benefits. I'm wondering if maybe you could use seeds that can perhaps just be spread? What are you trying to plant?

Oldtimr

Perhaps spread the seed and run a disk over the area would work.

cjclemens

I've done it a couple times before. We had a pipeline company clear overgrowth - mostly small trees and shrubs - out of a tree line that bordered one of our fields. If they do a good job and get those tree stumps totally flush with the soil surface, its really not that hard on the drill. If you're drilling grass or small seeded cover crops, you're really only pushing those seeds 1/4 deep or so. Also, the planting units on the drill ride on springs, so they'll roll over a stump pretty easily - especially if you take it nice and slow. The problem I ran into was the volume of mulch left behind. It was thick enough that it prevented the seeds from actually getting any contact with the soil. On the second attempt, I used a rake to drag all the mulch out into the field, so I could just plow it under. Once the mulch was gone, I actually got a pretty good stand of grass planted. As I mentioned before, you just gotta make sure the stumps are good and flush with soil level and take it extra slow.