Often a strong sulky horse rake will suffice. If the land is very level and a hay crop is to be seed ed, no further plowing is necessary, though it generally pays in the long run to plow after clearing, if economies of time or money do not interfere. Land covered with short, scrubby sage brush is cleared most cheaply by grubbing out with a mattock or grub hoe.
A mat tock drawn out thin and wide on its hoe side is preferable. In grubbing by hand it is always advisable to bear in mind that sage brush has only one main or tap root, and the blow should be directed so as to strike this main root about an inch under the surface of the ground, where it will be found to cut off easily. It is a simple matter to rake up the brush cleared by hand, and an ordinary hay rake will do the work satisfactorily.
The land having been cleared, it is ready to be plowed, and now it will be found that the land cleared by hand will be difficult to plow because all the roots have been left in the ground. The plow will have to cut them off, and the roots will later be a great inconvenience by clogging up the harrow. There are other methods of clearing sage brush, and many machines have been invented for the purpose. A number of these are very successful, but the ordinary man who has a limited acreage to clear finds it inexpedient to tie up too much of his capital in machinery of this kind.
However, there are a few salient features that can be laid down as general axioms. The first of these is that water will not run up hill, and the second is that it will run down hill. This seems simple, but is not as simple as it seems.
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Water turned into a ditch that has too much fall will cut the soil away and will pass through the ditch so rapidly that it will not scrape out well on the sides. The whole proposition in leveling is to strike the happy medium between these two extremes. How to do this will be indicated in a general way. The sage brush having been cleared and the land plowed, the small lumps should be taken off with a drag or "float," as it is called.
This instrument is generally made thus: The boards near the ends should not extend below the edges of the side pieces, while the center board should extend an inch or so below the side pieces. The position of these cross boards will depend upon the soil that is to be dragged, as they must be arranged so as not to clog up and dig in so deep as to make it impossible to pull. Four to six horses will be required to haul this drag. The small knolls and bumps having been smoothed down, the next step is to decide which way across the piece of land the water is to be run.
It is not possible to determine this with the naked eye, and a preliminary survey should be made of the land to determine the general slope. In leveling with the drag there will not be excessive hauling of dirt if the tract is to be leveled "to the draw," which means that the natural contour of the land will be adhered to as closely as possible.
The ditches will not run straight with the compass, but the water will be taken out of the head ditches along the crest of the ridge and turned into the small ditches which, running at the proper fall, will take the water over the land and discharge it into the waste ditches after the soil has been watered. For a real short haul in soft soil, a scraper can be used to advantage, but if the haul is very long the Fresno will be found necessary.
In filling up depressions on a slope the dirt should always be pulled from the lower side, as it will then be deposited on the higher side, increasing the fall of the land. All volcanic ash soils are richer at or near the surface than below, and where the surface dirt is taken off to any extent, several seasons of cultivation will be required to ripen the soil. Preferably I'd love to be able to use livestock to keep it back, but I haven't been able to figure out what might actually eat it?
- Anforderungen und Ressourcen in den Bachelor-Studiengängen: Emotionen und deren mögliche Regulation bei Studierenden (German Edition).
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- Pull up a Sagebrush by George Willock (2012, Paperback).
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We have considered a small goat herd but have heard mixed thoughts on how this might work. Does anyone have any suggestions on removing dense stands of sagebrush and generally keeping it under control once removed? Perhaps trying to figure out how to get irrigation on to the higher fields is our best bet? Thanks so much for any thoughts! Goats are the only thing I could think of. We get sage brush here as well. Seems to be worse in the over grazed areas as it has no problem growing where other things do not. Anyway, even the city contracts with a goat herder to get everything cleaned up yearly.
They move them around with electronet and they clean up the area.
- Pacific Rural Press, Volume 80, Number 18, 29 October 1910 — CLEARING SAGE BRUSH LAND. [ARTICLE].
- Chrislam.
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The problem I see for you would be that you don't live there. As such goats would be a bad idea for you. They require a fair bit of oversight as they tend to get into trouble and die very easily.
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That's just one option, a lot depends on what your real long term goals for the property any yourselves are. I saw that video and agree except the OP was saying it's a fire risk. I can relate to that and could see why he would be pulling it up near the buildings.
Perhaps the OP can think about pulling it up, dropping it, covering it with cardboard and straw and such until he is more able to plant what he wants in the area. At least it would help control the brush and prepare the ground a bit better. Danielle Venegas - That is great news, thanks for sharing about the goats. We do have a Perhaps talking to a contract herder makes sense here, as you are absolutely right that having our own goats won't make sense until we are there full time.
Michael Newby - Thanks very much for the link, I subscribed to Geoff Lawton's site and it looks to have lots of useful info. I will see what I can find as far as less intrusive plants native or otherwise that may do well to fill in the gaps left by clearing. The problem with trying to find good replacement plants is that not much can survive out there without significant irrigation most of the property is flood irrigated , as the summers are warm and very dry. Thanks for the helpful tips! I thought I'd post an update in case anyone else has a similar issue.
We ended up deciding to use the property as our wedding venue this summer, so getting things cleared out become time sensitive. We ended up borrowing a couple of backhoes from the neighbors for the larger areas , and had a team of manual laborers AKA family members In some of the tighter spots we literally removed each plant manually with a pick. One trick that worked very, very well was to make a "noose", and use a truck to pull the sagebrush out by its roots.
Basically made a giant adjustable noose out of the cable that we could throw around a couple of plants and yank them out with the truck. Not super quick, but less back breaking that a pick.
Sagebrush control? (greening the desert forum at permies)
I still love the idea of using goats or other livestock, and as we will be battling the stuff forever I will try this and report back. Unfortunately, as pointed out, we can't really do this until we are living there full time. If only there were jobs Thanks for all of the thoughts! Though, in a way, it is better there aren't. I love this forum, just need to get the creative juices flowing and find a solution to make it work.
Wouldn't want to be there if it were the city.
Glad to hear that you found a solution for the short term. Our farm had many established stands of sumac when we purchased it that were years old. With this and my 4wd jeep we managed to pull up many of the 3" diameter trunks. We ended up keeping only 4 of the sumac trunks for shade and winter feed for the blue birds.