A couple weeks back I got to see what I think it a fairly unique way to remove Eastern redcedars.

I witnessed a forestry mulcher taking out cedar trees of all sizes. The remains from each cedar tree was a pile of mulch. No tree carcasses to pile and burn. No stumps to hit later with a brush hog or other equipment.

When the oil industry turned south this winter, my friend Darrell Noblitt of Mustang, Oklahoma, decided his work as a land man was finished and he purchased one of these machines and go into business clearing pastureland, oilfield sites and so forth. He had described to me renting one of these forest mulchers to clear pasture for a friend several months back and was very impressed with the results.

Noblitt is running his mulcher on a Caterpillar skid steer. If you look up forestry mulchers for sale you’ll find they can be run on a variety of equipment, from trackhoes to tractors to front-end loaders.

Smaller trees disappear in a shower of cedar in a couple seconds under the spinning disc-type blades. Larger trees take longer to grind off and destroy, but from my experience watching Noblitt work the end result is always a pile of mulch.

Noblitt’s billable rate is $200 per hour while the machine is running. He has no delivery or transportation fees or other surcharges. Therefore, the number of trees cleared in an hour is totally dependent on the size of the trees. However, Noblitt says the standard expectation quoted most often is about four acres per day for scattered trees of roughly 6-inch diameter in a pasture.

You can reach Darrell Noblitt on his cell phone at (405) 833-2112.

The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Beef Producer or Farm Progress.

After a few minutes, mulch is all that remains of three big cedar trees.