bracken bashing with a view to eradication

[jrose]

aye one of those shredder blades is the best option for a brushcutter - you lift it up, rev it and drop, as much if ot more than the side to side strimming motion. Works a treat!

[JimM]

Used a brushcutter last year on a load of bracken. The small size of the blade makes it too easy to "step over" a lot of stems as you sweep and bashing it down is a pain. Very slow technique. A lot of the time I used the strongest strimmer line I could find to give more of a sweep width.

 

That shredder blade would have been much better. The flail mower looks the biz, but a pity its not a cheap solution.

[normandylumberjack]

The estate i used to work on had a special roller, made of 2 wheels and bars conecting them like a drum, pulled behind an atv. I used it in the deer park there and it crushed and bruised those stems real nice, and i didn't get one tick whilst doing it, which was nice.

 

You could fabricate a hand push one?

[Andy Collins]

Ive seen one similar to that idea for horse loggers, wouldnt be hard to tow behind a quad

[arbmark]

cheers guys lots of possibilities there......much appreciated

[Andy Collins]

IIRC the one i saw was a steel roller with a couple of angle iron bars welded along the length, so it rolled crushed and cut all in one motion. Sure i had a picure somewhere but cant find it now.

Specialist company!! http://www.brackenbruiser.co.uk/

Edited May 7, 2012 by Andy Collins

[HCR]

I've dealt with this guy before - could be useful on sensitive/awkward sites:

 

Horse logging equipment

[openspaceman]

Specialist company!! Landbase

 

What worries me about these, compared with asulam (which I thought some consortium had got a special licence for continuing special use) is that the bruising will be done in the nesting season, their site shows heather and the three main indicator species are all ground or near ground nesting.

 

Mind when we were motor manual harvesting just the rolling of car tyres favoured grass over bracken for the season.

 

I once attended a lecture by a bracken "expert" he reckoned he had sample plots that had been cut for 18 years and still bracken persisted.