When a paddock has gone back to scrub, or a block needs opening up for a house site or a fire break, there are two main ways to clear it. Mulching shreds the vegetation where it stands. Dozer clearing pushes it over, rakes it up and stacks it. Both work. They suit different ground and different plans for the land afterwards, and picking the wrong one is how clearing jobs blow out.
We run both, a TL12R2 tracked loader with an FAE mulching head and a CAT D5R dozer. This is how we decide which one goes on a job.
How forestry mulching works
A mulcher is a tracked machine with a spinning drum of hardened teeth on the front. It drives into scrub, regrowth and small trees and grinds them into wood chip, which drops where it's cut. Nothing gets pushed into heaps, burnt or carted off.
Mulching earns its keep on slopes and erosion-prone ground, because the mulch layer protects the soil from rain. On Gippsland's hills that's often what decides it. There are no windrows to burn, so you don't need a burn permit or have to wait out the Fire Danger Period, and there's no smoke.
A mulcher can also work selectively, taking out scrub and weeds around the trees you want to keep. That's why it's the usual choice for fire breaks, fence lines and asset protection around houses. One pass leaves the site tidy and drivable without a separate clean-up. Blackberry and gorse thickets get shredded down to the crown, ready for follow-up spraying (there's more on that in our blackberry control guide).
Mulchers have their limits, though. They handle scrub, regrowth and small trees well, but large trees and stumps are slow and costly to grind, and the stumps stay in the ground. If you plan to plough, rip or sow a crop, those buried stumps and roots will get in the way. A deep layer of chip can also slow pasture regrowth for a season while it breaks down, and it can tie up some soil nitrogen as it does.
How dozer clearing works
A dozer pushes over standing vegetation, rips out stumps and roots, and stick-rakes the lot into windrows. The windrows then get burnt (when that's allowed), left as habitat piles, or stacked for firewood or later mulching.
Heavy timber and stumps are where the dozer wins. A D5R moves material a mulcher would take hours to grind. It's also the better option for land going into cultivation or new pasture, because root raking leaves clean ground you can work straight away. The same machine can do the earthworks in the same job too: cutting tracks, house pads and dam walls, shaping drains, and pushing up fire breaks.
The downside is bare ground. Stripped soil on a slope will erode in the first heavy rain unless it's sown or covered quickly. Someone also has to deal with the windrows, and burning them needs the right conditions and, during the Fire Danger Period, a permit. Ripping out roots brings up subsoil and weed seed as well, so you'll usually need follow-up weed control.
Quick guide: which method for which job
| Job | Usually best |
|---|---|
| Fire break or fire track through scrub | Mulcher, with a dozer to form the track |
| Reclaiming a paddock gone to scrub, back to grazing | Mulcher |
| Blackberry, gorse or bracken thickets | Mulcher, then follow-up spraying |
| Steep or erosion-prone hillside | Mulcher |
| Heavy timber and stumps, land going into cultivation | Dozer with stick and root rakes |
| House site, shed pad or dam | Dozer |
| Clearing around trees you want to keep | Mulcher |
Plenty of jobs use both. The mulcher clears the scrub, then the dozer follows to form a track or pull out a few big stumps. We float our own machines, so we bring whichever combination suits the ground.
What affects the cost
With either method, the price depends mostly on how dense and how big the vegetation is, the slope, the ground conditions, access and the area. The number of hectares on its own doesn't tell you much. A hectare of light regrowth on flat ground is a very different job from a hectare of dense burgan on a wet hillside, which is why we'd rather see a site, or at least some good photos, before we quote.
Before you clear
Whichever method you go with, check whether any of the vegetation is native, because removing native vegetation can need a permit. Our guide to land clearing permits in Gippsland explains what to look for.
If you're not sure which approach suits your land, tell us what you want the ground used for afterwards and we'll recommend the method that gets you there for the least cost. You can request a quote, or read more about our land reclaiming service.