I'm working on about 40 acres of mixed redwood/fir/tanoak and am logging the softwood as well as thinning the tanoak for firewood (50 cords/yr).
This of course produces a lot of branches, and the tanoak especially doesn't lay down like the conifer branches do, so I'm considering a chipper. We can do burn piles here but with that many branches I'd be monitoring and stacking burn piles all winter.
My question is, is there a PTO chipper that I'd mount on a 35 or so horse tractor that can handle branches up to 4-5" with a spread out crown on them reliably and quickly, or would I be sorry (for reliability and ability sake) that I didn't bite the bullet and purchase a separate commercial grade tow-behind chipper?
Remember, I'm sometimes working on skid-trails with climbs and dives and getting a tow-behind in there is not as easy as backing a PTO based chipped on the back of of a 4x4 tractor. OTOH, I could sometimes use a wheel loader and grab stacks of branches to bring them to a location to chip.
What are your comments, recommendations, warnings, etc?
This of course produces a lot of branches, and the tanoak especially doesn't lay down like the conifer branches do, so I'm considering a chipper. We can do burn piles here but with that many branches I'd be monitoring and stacking burn piles all winter.
My question is, is there a PTO chipper that I'd mount on a 35 or so horse tractor that can handle branches up to 4-5" with a spread out crown on them reliably and quickly, or would I be sorry (for reliability and ability sake) that I didn't bite the bullet and purchase a separate commercial grade tow-behind chipper?
Remember, I'm sometimes working on skid-trails with climbs and dives and getting a tow-behind in there is not as easy as backing a PTO based chipped on the back of of a 4x4 tractor. OTOH, I could sometimes use a wheel loader and grab stacks of branches to bring them to a location to chip.
What are your comments, recommendations, warnings, etc?
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