Neglected fence lines.

I just bought this farm 2 years ago.

When you just sit in the tractor seat and don't take a little time each year to cut off the little trees they turn into big trees. There will be room for 6 more rows and the next 6 will not be choked out in the shade any longer when I get done.

Some would say let it go for wildlife but it gets wider every year.

I have been at this fence row for 3 days last fall and 4 days this fall. I have about 70 yards left to go. Trying to beat the frost.

I'm a fence contractor in british columbia and those pictures bring back memories. Old case backhoe is what we started with clearing. Worst one for brush we found was on Galiano Island. 75 feet from the original fence line. 5 different times it was fenced. Everytime it needed a new fence the old farmer just came out farther in the field. I found the customer an extra 5 acres once we got done.

It doesn't take long to grow up. The 100 foot barrier between me and my neighbors behind me has
over grown with vines and trees you can't get a vehicle thru it. It's full of skunks, racoons, foxes and groundhogs too.

One of their trees blew over on my garden and I told a neighbor to call his homeowners association to cut up the tree. No one ever showed up, so I cut up what was on me. Hal

This guy farmed this bottom ground and along the north side of his property was a old railroad right-of-way. Railroad went out in the 20's. He got a contractor in there to clean it up to farm. Got it pushed up into brush piles and someone got it declared wet land. Brush piles still there today. Just to the north of the right-of-way fence there is development going on. I would say money talks.

Reminds me of the time in the early 60's whendad had to rebuild the fence at the edge of the woods. The tres and brush had grown up bad so he rented a rotary stalk chopper/brush cutter from the IH dealer. Hooked behind the 350 it would chop up anything the tractor could push over.

This is true, and all that cutting, trimming and stump removal can turn into a lot of work just to clear things back when this work is not done for years. It's a real pain to trim back all the branches from a woodline next to a field, ones that hang off older trees etc. A lot of the old fields still in use around here have been encroached on by the lack of doing this work over the years.

Most of the rented land does not get any attention to the hedgerows, and there is no doubt a cumulative loss of crop land when it all adds up. Critters love the overgrown areas here, just chock full of rabbits, deer, and quite a few grouse.

My neighbor spends a little time in the spring with the jd 3150 fwa and loader, pushing younger trees back, ones that are close to the edge of the field, even if just branches are in the way, to do a neater job, and let those trees like cherry and elm grow for firewood or future use, it's a lot of work, and at his age, just easier to push em back.

I've often wondered what was done to maintain them years back, all the hedgerows here are old property lines, old field/fence lines, with some real old trees, lot of old cherry, and other hardwoods, makes good firewood when they fall, just have to realize there will be barbed wire and fence staples or other metals in there, I try to use an old or getting worn out chain on the saw, though the old fence is usually so rusted, it just dulls the cutters more than damages them.

Some of the older fence lines are still in-tact, and remembering when I was a kid, every line, hedgerow, buffer area etc., was posted with locust posts and barbed wire around here, not so much in the mountains nearby, but around any crop land, you always had to deal with an old fence line, like 50+ years old back then, that locust sure stands the test of time, now there are remnants in areas, lot of it has finally come down from trees, branches and or age.

Gary;

I'm from the "leave it for wildlife school" but then I'm not trying to make a living farming. I manage our 80 for wildlife, which includes cutting trees along the field/woods, light disking, food plots, etc. With all the RR corn and beans, it's amazing any wildlife brings off a brood. But again, I'm not trying to make a living or criticizing. I'm just thankful I have the land to work with every day.

Larry in Michigan

I'm only working with 16 acres, but it's a parttime job every year and it still gets away sometimes. Darned multaflora rose!!

My brother in law has 4.5 acres of farm land in 2 fields with trees all around. Spent a couple days this spring with a chainsaw & burn pile, like you say added about 6 rows all the way around, got a lot more corn off that 4.5 acres - almost made it worth driving that far for less than 5 acres. The outside rounds are the longest ones, really makes a difference.

--->Paul

I cleared all of mine here on the home place in 01. Built all new fences. I learned right then that the biggest mistake that we'd made over the years was not maintaining fencerows and fences. It's a WHOLE lot bigger job when you do it all at once. A guy just south of Stanton said that when he bought his place,the autumn olive was so bad that you could just get a tractor down the middle of the field to get to the back of the place. Says now you can't even walk back there.

Years back it was not a problem as all the farms had livestalk and the fields were pastured and the livestalk kept the stuff from growing, that cow trying to get a mouthfull of grass if there was a tree starting that was under about 8" the cow ate with the grass and never had a chance to get big. The hogs also helped keep every thing down. When no longer livestalk that is when they started getting overgrown.

Must have been how it was, everything was fenced off it seems, they must have grazed crop land as well as areas that were not suited for crops, which around here is usually rocky or shale areas with outcrops. I can remember my father pushing up an old fence row in an adjacent 30 acre field, for our neighbor who rented it, using the old D7 caterpillar when I was a kid, was quite a mess to get rid of once piled up into a windrow.

I have found locust posts still completely intact, point and all, and with this climate that is impressive for an untreated wood.

Years ago, we mowed right up to the fences with the syckle bar mowers. Now the tractors have a cab on them and they stay away from the tree branches and the brush growes farther into the field each year.

My wife and I bought our ground about 10 years ago and rent it to a friend. I started noticing that a lot of the weeds and trees were dying off. He said "yep, sometimes the overspray gets them." Well the next year I saw him in the field and the sprayer was Pointed right up at the trees! I just laughed; I figure he's been farming a lot longer than me and knows how to make the best use of the land. I'll bet he's gotten an extra 10 feet all the way around 80 acres now. Place really looks great too.
Kurt

I bought my 28 acre farm 6 years ago in a very neglected state. East property line had been cleared many years ago, so was no fence there, but was overgrown with wild cherry, hackberry, hickory and mulberry. Farm had been in CRP for 14 years and absplutely nothing done to any of the fields.
The west property line had wild irish rose growing about 25 feet into the field along with all the young saplings.
I used my Case 320 dozer and tractor and mostly pulled the trees out with a chain since they were too big to push out with the little dozer.
One of the biggest detriments to keeping the lines clean was the practice of plowing the outsides out into the fence so there was actually a 2 foot high ridge on both fence lines.
This past spring I completed the 4 year project of clearing both lines and now have clean open lines and no worries anout hitting the tree limbs with the tractor. I estimate I have added 2 acres of cropland and increased the production on the rest of the borders.
Present project is cleaning out the woods from many generations of dumping. Already sold 3 trailer loads of scrap iron and still have 1 load to go... Gene

In SW ND we are planting trees. We get CRP cost share and rent payments to do it.

When we bought our house it was in the woods with trees grown right up to every side. The leaves were never raked and only a small patch of lawn was ever mowed. Fire hazards galore!

I now have fifty feet of clearance on all sides. It won't stop a fire but it will slow it down, maybe enough for us to get out.

Hey Ian,
Didn't my whole farm look like that?
Grant

With land values approaching or in some cases exceeding $6000 an acre here in Iowa, it just makes good financial sense to keep the fence rows clear.

Gene and others: what do you do with the 2' high ridge? I need to fix some fence that has that.

One guy said to blade it down flat first but if I do that then the farmer who plows the land next to the fence will just build up another ridge over the years.

I could move the fence either against the ridge or a foot or so inside the pasture and inside the old fence.

Or I could move it a foot or two outside the pasture into the plowed ground. A couple more feet higher would make it a lot harder for a cow or horse to get over the fence except there might be a step for them to start on. To close to the edge of the ridge and the posts will fall over. Too far out and the farmer will still plow a new ridge against the fence along with occasionally snagging the fence with his plow.

Thanks.

if this is the cranberry grant, yes it did. you should still be tired from all the work you did.