[BethesdaEC]

I have 9 acres, 6 acres is woods and the rest is lawn. Anyways decades of neglect had left my woods impenetrable and all of the fallen branches and trees were piled on the treeline between the lawn and woods. I have cut some access roads and have been working on clearing the perimeter of the yard. Anyways I have started a stump dump about 200 yards from the house, it is 60' x 30' and about 5 feet deep. If the wood is clean and not pine, it goes in the firewood pile, but there is a lot of partially rotted logs and some fresh stumps. As I have scraped the crumbs from cleaning up the perimeter, the decomposing leaves, branches etc., and I have been pouring that material on the top of the new dump in the hopes that it will retain moisture and speed the decomposition.

Are there any other trick to get this decomposition moving faster? Burning is not an option, the political officers in the Peoples Republic of Maryland have deemed it against the collective good.

 

[Kennyd]

Wow-that's a big pile, and stumps don't go away quickly. I wonder if there is a company like this in MD that has a tub grinder: http://www.biomassone.com/tub_grinder.php and how much it would cost...

 

[BethesdaEC]

Wow-that's a big pile, and stumps don't go away quickly. I wonder if there is a company like this in MD that has a tub grinder: http://www.biomassone.com/tub_grinder.php and how much it would cost...

There is no way heavy equipment would be able to get down there. I was hoping there was some sort of bacteria I could sprinkle on to move things along. When you stop by, I will give you a full tour.

 

[Brian]

You can speed up the process by drilling some holes in the trunk which will allow air and water down into the trunk. You could even take this one step further by putting fertilizer in the holes. Then cover with leaves and compost and wait.

 

[BethesdaEC]

You can speed up the process by drilling some holes in the trunk which will allow air and water down into the trunk. You could even take this one step further by putting fertilizer in the holes. Then cover with leaves and compost and wait.

Fertilizer, that's a good idea and fairly cheap too.

 

[jenkinsph]

What I did when clearing my lawn area was dig some deep long trenches to bury the stumps and branches. I used the backhoe to break up the branches against the trench walls and pack everything down. I made sure I had at least a foot of soil over the top of the trenches. This will settle some over a 10 year period but is a good way to get them varmits out of sight. My other choice was paying the landfill about $6000 plus hauling fees. You might be suprized how much you can pack into a trench with the backhoe, I reloaded the trenches 6 or 7 times.

 

[RRMCCABE]

Same for me. Stumps will hang around a long time.

I dug a big hole with a cat loader and buried them. I did it in an area I knew would settle and when it goes is shouldn't look out of place.

Even if you could burn stumps are about impossible. I have had a couple that I had in the middle of big fire and most of it remained.

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[Brian]

Another idea, if you have a lot of deere around. Dril a few holes in the top of the stump and put a salt block on it. Over time the salt block will melt into the stump. The deere will eat the stump to get at the salt. Last year I had the deere eat a 15" Maple stump that was 3 foot tall down to the ground in about 2 months.

I really have good luck with fertilizer and leaves also....

 

[glc]

Another idea, if you have a lot of deere around. Dril a few holes in the top of the stump and put a salt block on it. Over time the salt block will melt into the stump. The deere will eat the stump to get at the salt. Last year I had the deere eat a 15" Maple stump that was 3 foot tall down to the ground in about 2 months.

I really have good luck with fertilizer and leaves also....

Would they eat the stump if it was black walnut or cherry?

Greg

 

[Brian]

Around here they eat anything that has salt in it.

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[Pafarmer]

hire a man with an excavator to dig a big hole, fill hole with everything you want gone forever and first burn it and then follow up with a formal burial............the best , fastest, evironmentally friendly, cleanest way to remove mass quanities of brush, stumps and debris......been doing it for a living most of my life.

 

[Manomet]

Would they eat the stump if it was black walnut or cherry?

Greg

Black walnut is toxic to a lot of critters I would be surprised if deer would eat it for long , but this sounds like a great idea for other stumps and we have plenty of deer around here