"Tree Crusher" Creates Pasture On Logged Ground

"Tree Crusher" Creates Pasture On Logged Ground WOODLOT EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 28-2-33 "It crushes small trees and brush to control their regrowth and seeds pasture at the same time, providing me with a cheap way to convert logged-over land into pasture," says Robert Friesen, Crooked Creek, Alberta, about his home-built, self-propelled combination tree crusher and breaking plow. The 3-wheeled machine measures 40 ft. long and is powered by a 250 hp Cummins diesel engine out of a Peterbilt semi truck. It rides on a pair of 7 1/2-ft. high, 4-ft. wide, lugged steel drive wheels on front and a single 7 1/2-ft. high, 6-ft. wide steel wheel on back. The frame and steel wheels are off an old LeTourneau land clearing machine. The wheels have 6-in. deep steel lugs, spaced 1 ft. apart, that crush small trees, branches, and stumps and reduce them to small pieces. A "push bar" mounts on front of the machine, which has about 8 ft. of clearance, and scrapers mount underneath it. The drive train consists of the engine, a truck transmission, and pulleys that belt-drive the drive axle between the front wheels, which came out of an old truck. There are 10 V-belts in all. As the machine goes forward, a 6-bu. electric seeder spreads grass seed across a 30-ft. width. The seeder mounts on a canopy above the driver's seat. Seed falls into the cracks made by the wheel lugs and germinates to create new pasture. If Friesen wants, he can replace the steel wheel at the rear with a "breaking plow" that's supported by a big rubber tire on a frame made from 36-in. dia. pipe. The plow makes a 4-ft. wide, 10-in. deep furrow that digs up tree stumps. A series of steel prongs on one side of the plow are used to roll the sod over, much like a moldboard plow does. The plow and frame are raised and lowered by a hydraulic cylinder. Another cylinder is used to control the angle of the plow. "I used it last summer on about 100 acres of logged-over land. It worked good and shows a lot of promise, although I still have several problems to work out on it," says Friesen. "The trees that the wheels crush definitely died, and the ones that got scraped or blazed will hopefully die. I had to add a governor to the engine and we lost traction in freezing mud. "My machine may not look like it's doing a good job because after I go over the ground it looks quite rough. However, it clears away competiton for the grass so that it will grow a lot better. The machine is heavy, and the lugs are hard surfaced and very sharp so they cut right through most small trees. The seed falls onto the ground before the wheels go over it, and as a result the wheels push the seed into the ground." According to Friesen, his home-built machine works a lot better than conventional land clearing methods because it does everything in one pass. And he spent less than $10,000 to build it, yet it does the work of machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert Friesen, Rt. 1, Crooked Creek, Alberta, Canada T0H 0Y0 (ph 780 957-2332).

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