So far it has gone well enough Started with this
and turned it into this.
So far so good. But most of that was all briars and evil honeysuckle. Now I am getting into massive stands of sweetgum, walnut, cedar, and other assorted saplings. most of it is a good 10-15 feet tall, ranges from 1/2 inch all the way up to 3".
Rifle is for scale.
So progress has been made, but now I am not sure my tractor/hog combo can handle this.
It is an older ford 1510 that is turning a mostly held together my plywood and baling twine 5 foot bush hog. engine HP is rated at 22. PTO is I believe 19
So far I have cut one or two paths into some of the thick, but I am going on range 1, gear 2 most of the time, and each patch is taking out on average 1 to 2 shear bolts. That is with overlapping somewhat with the previous pass.
Slow going is better than no going of course, but I also don't want to end up tearing something important apart, if I am way overworking my tractor. I know shear bolts do a good job of preventing that, but just wanted to see what others are thinking.
If this is overworking my tractor, what would be some other options to clearing that out myself? I have a blade on a weedeater, but not sure if that would be any better.
Total land I need to hog, is right near 14 acres. This field is about 3.5 of it give or take. The rest are not quite as bad as far as the saplings go though.
Thanks again.