removing a one acre stand of rotten pines (cheaply)

[tantric]

beside my home there's a stand of geriatric pine trees, crippled by beetles but still alive. I would very much like them to go away so I can plant blueberries.

the pines are at the bottom of the pic, which happens to be south - see how there's no place for them to fall but east...and that's where the septic tank drains and not especially stable.

personally, I'd like to cut them so they all fall towards the center, then grow muscadine vines over them, but that would be a nightmare and I know it.

any other ideas?

[applestar]

I have no experience with large scale projects like this so I can't help there, but I was thinking that if you run the cut down pines through the chipper, they will make good mulch for the blueberries, and piling them to make *composted* pine mulch (I suppose you would need a front loader type of equipment to turn and work on them... And lots of space... Don't know exactly how it's done myself) ...that should come in handy in a couple of years.

[applestar]

FYI I think I've seen relevant articles at Fungi Perfecti https://www.fungi.com. The ones I'm thinking of involved large areas -- HUGE mounds and stretches of road shoulders of wood chips inoculated with mushroom spawn to speed decomposition.

Let me know if you find them because I'm on the cell phone ATM and it's too hard to search.

[imafan26]

Might be a good candidate for hugelkultur beds. Felling trees in tight spots, I would not try to do that myself. It is a bit too out of my skill set.