# cost per acre to clear land



## Bondo

Hi, I am new to this site and for those that thave experience and years in the field I have the following questions:
how much to charge to hand cut ashe juniper trees per acre? All plants regardless of height will be cut including small seedlings. Cut plants are to be left where they fall and not placed in piles, chipped, or hauled off.

Next questions is cost per acre to clear land (pine trees, color wood, brushes etc...everything must go, disposed, and hauled off and then grind stumps, apply lime and disc to plant grass later.
Thanks


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## BostonBull

Bondo said:


> Hi, I am new to this site and for those that thave experience and years in the field I have the following questions:
> how much to charge to hand cut ashe juniper trees per acre? All plants regardless of height will be cut including small seedlings. Cut plants are to be left where they fall and not placed in piles, chipped, or hauled off.
> 
> Next questions is cost per acre to clear land (pine trees, color wood, brushes etc...everything must go, disposed, and hauled off and then grind stumps, apply lime and disc to plant grass later.
> Thanks



This is almost impossible to answer without being on the land looking at it. the terrain, size of trees, targets on the property etc etc etc plays a HUGE role in te quote.

Post some pics if possible...but if were talking acres, this may be impossible.


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## diltree

Between $5,000.00 to $6,000.00 per acre clearing without grubbing is the going rate in our area, we subcontract our land-clearing out at $5,500.00 per acre, and we tack on a small handling fee


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## nilzlofgren

Up here in south jersey, I get about $5000 per acre. That includes felling, limbing, chipping, and pulling stumps. That price does not include removal of stumps from the site. That price is separate, and that phase is done with 30yd containers. Also, when i fell the tree, I don't buck it. I simply limb it, grab it with log forks, and stack it with all the other logs, regardless of length. This method saves alot of time and alot of wear on the saw.


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## treeman82

If you are talking about juniper and smaller pines I'd suggest trying to find a BIG forestry mower to rent.


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## Bondo

*No Heavy Equipment*

Hi,
No heavy equipment is to be used...only chainsaws and skidsteers with mower but skidsteer can only do so much in a day (less than 3 acres a day). How much would you charge depending on the diameter of the tree (juniper/cedar)? How many acres can one guy do per day (juniper/cedar)? Remember that this trees(juniper/cedar) are not cluster against each other but sparsed.


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## diltree

How many men will you use? will you chip on site? will you run the logs? will some one take the logs, will youhave to pay to get rid of them? You said you have a skidder, do you have a chipper and log truck?


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## ASD

Bondo said:


> skidsteers with mower but skidsteer can only do so much in a day (less than 3 acres a day)



less then 3 acres ?? get a better opperator or a bigger skidsteer we have a T300 with a rock hound mower and can clear 6+ in a day of all brush 4" and under.


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## ArtB

How many acres do you have to clear?

Does the phrase "No heavy equipment is to be used" implies some aesthetic objection to a big crawleror hoe?

Developer just cleared 10 acres nearby of heavy D fir and alder, less than 30 ft elevatin changes overall, brought in 7 (seven) big trackhoes and a D10 even - thought that was overkill for 10 acres, but it was bare dirt in about 4 days. 
If you have more than one acre and are even a little bit 'handy', you can buy a used tracked loader or dozer or backhoe for under $10 K easily, and have at it (DONT GO INTO THE WOODS WITH A MACHINE WITHOUT FOPS!!!). Resell when done, cost is then only your time. 

If you are where you can burn, put out a sign for free firewood, when that is all gone (I've had 4 cords of alder and cottonwood dissappear within 2 hours of putting up a sign) push the slash into a pile and burn it.


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## ASD

hand cut ashe juniper trees per acre? All plants regardless of height will be cut including small seedlings. Cut plants are to be left where they fall and not placed in piles, chipped, or hauled off.

hand cut ?? wrong tool for the job get a tree shear for your skid steer and one man can cut 10 X the trees with out braking a sweet!


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## ASD

ok how about some pic's
or
tree count per acre
or
how many acers??? is it flat or hilly or is it a shear cliff????????

we clear all the time and are setup to do it if u are not u may not b able to come peet with some of us that are is this your land or are u bidding on a job


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## Bondo

We are talking about 1800 plus acres! The reason no big equipment dozers etc is because they do not want any soil disruption etc. Time frame to finish the job is 2 months! I'll post pictures this coming friday if I can.
Terrain is mostly flat with some hills.


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## ASD

Bondo said:


> We are talking about 1800 plus acres! The reason no big equipment dozers etc is because they do not want any soil disruption etc. Time frame to finish the job is 2 months! I'll post pictures this coming friday if I can.
> Terrain is mostly flat with some hills.



OK they want small (low psi equipment) have them give u a ground presser not to exceed small dose not mean light on the ground our 47 k excavator has almost the same psi foot print as a t300 and can clear a 60' path from one set of tracks and a track loader has to engage each tree/bush and do more damage to the area

OK 1800 acers by 40 working days is 45 acers a day so what do you have for man power and equipment ?? u said u can clear 3 acars a day . do u have 15 skidsteers with mower heads??

and another 4 with tree shears? 

how much damage do u think 19 skids are going to do running all over the place in two months? 

what is this land going to b used 4 when your done??? y do they want u to leave all the cut trees behind 4? u can clear much faster and have a better looking land scape if u use an ex with a mower head


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## diltree

Only two months( lets say 54 working days if you work sats), 1800 acres, you can only do 3 acres a day. That would give you 162 acres completed if you can maintain your 3 a day avg. for the 54 working days. This would leave over 1600 acres not completed by the dead line. It sounds like this job is out of your league.......


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## Husky137

From your information, the numbers don't work and the customer has ridiculous limitations considering the time frame expectation.

An estimate of trees per acre would be helpful.


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## nilzlofgren

1800acres x $5000 = $9,000,000. 1 acre = 43,560 sf. for a grand total of 78,408,000 sf. or 2.8 sq. miles. Unless you have men and eqipment in the triple digits, your not clearing in two months.


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## BostonBull

This is why I said at the negining...Its imposible to give an estimate on clearing *ACRES* of land without seeing it in person. 1800!!!! Acres!?!?! Thats a lot of land. But what we dont know is. How many of those acres may only have ten or twenty saplings on it, like an old farmers field? This job may be able to be done, with some serious equipment and personnel, maybe even get a sub in to help out, but we need to be standing on all 1800 acres to see.

What will the cleared land be used for?


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## ArtB

1800 acres - the "out of your league" comment sounds like a valid response.

Here's an ebay offering along the lines of the minimum you need.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...loc=closed_view_item&refwidgettype=osi_widget

When I bought my first equipment in the mid 60s, met a guy who in the late 40's who was part of clearing the soon to be lakebed behind Hungry Horse Dam.

Don't know what the bid was, but his friend got the job, many square miles, with a penalty for going past the time limit and incentive for finishing early.

D9s were the biggest tractor then. They bought 4 from CAT, got a bunch of WWII surplus anchor chain (the 5 inch dia link stuff) and a few 20,000 pound steel balls and some BIG swivels. Took the a track apiece off the D9s and made a couple of D9 tandems out of them. Bought a few D8s also. 

They put the ball at the middle of 2 long anchor chains and a tandem dual D9 at each end and ran thru the forest. Did not bother to log anything, pushed everything downhill into piles with the D8s and burned it all. Made big money by finishing way ahead of time and then had all those machines free and clear besides. Close to 35 miles long and about 25,000 + acres cleared. 

For even that relatively small 3 section 1800 acres, yu gotta try to think along differernt lines than a skidsteer and brushcutters. The ball and chain would not leave much of a footprint. I'm thinking one (or many) of the big Cat or Link-belt track hoes with a thumb and shear attachment would give the least land impact and quickest clearing. You outa be able to buy a used 15 ton trackhoe for $30K or so and have at it. 

Milwaukee land company clearcut 6 sq miles next to my cabin in the 90s'. After the logging, mostly with towers, they slash burned everything in place over the course of 4 days - D6s all around the perimiter and a fire truck every 1.4 mile. No idea what the slash burn cost or how many guys at work 24 hrs a day. 

My neighbor is a retired logger and former head of the county parks department equipment operation. IIRC, his rule of thumb was you need at least a D8 and 500 operating hours per section depending on terrain.


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