With the SJVAPCD offering incentives for mulching entire orchards in California, I thought I would make a post about what equipment is available from Garton Tractor. A bit of an overview of mulchers and tillage tools. Whole Orchard Recycling is the idea of mulching or shredding the entire orchard and working the wood back into the soil. Garton Tractor offers a large selection of tillage tools that can be used after the orchard has been processed, the Lemken Rubin and Heliodor tools work great for this purpose. We also offer a selection of mulchers that can fit our Kubota or Takeuchi compact track loaders. (Shown below is a Prinoth AHWI M450s-1900 mulcher on a Kubota SVL95-2s)
The mulchers for these compact machines can be configured for Knives or Hammers. The steel knives will wear out faster than a carbide hammer, but they will chip through more wood at a higher speed. The carbide hammers shine when you are expecting to mulch a tree or piece of wood and then incorporate it back into the soil, with the mulching head. Another item to note is not all brands or styles of cutting drum have a gauge control mechanism, Prinoth offers a Bite-Control System or BCS. You can see the flat steel on the roller that controls how much wood the knives will take in one bite. This depth or bite control helps operators not overwork the machine leading to a long knife or blade life.
(Ben Garton, me, Watching a Prinoth Raptor 300 mulch through some stumps / brush in 2019) There are larger self-propelled mulching or masticating machines from Prime Tech FAE or as pictured above a Prinoth AHWI Raptor. The Prinoth Raptor in the picture above has dual grouser steel tracks, 300 horsepower, and a direct drive cutting head. The direct drive is used for maximum power throughput. The other large self-propelled mulcher is a Prime Tech (FAE) machine, these are powered through a large Hydraulic system and have hydraulic driven heads. If you are interested in equipment or looking for a referral contact us through the website and we will point you in the right direction. Links for more information about whole orchard recycling can be found below.
Click here for UC Davis Website on orchard recycling CDFA Press Release