Converted Moldboard Plow Makes Super Stump Puller

Converted Moldboard Plow Makes Super Stump Puller WOODLOT EQUIPMENT Stump Cutters 25-5-29 Don Winship and his son Craig sell and replant thousands of Christmas trees each year, which means they have thousands of stumps to dig out before they can replant their fields. When they couldn't find a tool they needed to handle different size stumps with minimal soil disturbance, they decided to design their own. They started with an old three-point mounted Ford two-bottom plow. They removed the front beam and everything but the shank from the rear beam. "We replaced the moldboard with a tool we had made by a local machine shop," Winship says. It consists of three spikes about 8 in. long welded to a plate that bolts onto the plow shank. "We just drive over the stump and lower the plow about 2 ft. behind the stump. The spikes go into the soil and the stump at an angle. When the spikes are imbedded in the stump, we continue forward in first gear as we raise the stump puller," he says. "Usually, the stumps fall off the spikes onto the ground, but once in awhile, we have to pull them off," he says. The Winships have used their stump puller on thousands of stumps so far, most of which are 5 in. in diameter or less. "We usually leave the stumps on the field for a few months to dry and then gather them up with a front end loader for disposal," he says. He says the puller is faster and requires less labor than other methods of removing stumps they've tried. "There's very little soil disturbance, so it takes less work to get fields ready to replant," he notes. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Don and Craig Winship, Pine Top Plantation, P.O. Box 271, South Dayton, N.Y. 14138 (ph 716 988-5050; E-mail: ptp@utec.net).

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