Sycamore seeds, leaves and autumn

[Patiencepending]

I’m curious if anyone feels they’ve ‘cracked it’ when it comes to getting rid of oak and sycamore leaves and sycamore seeds from paddocks?

We’re using the area of our fields that are furthest away and every morning we walk line by line and pick up everything we find.

It takes ages but if course I’d rather that than AM.

we’ve been looking at leaf sweepers wondering if they’d help us out. We’ve seen both pull behind Atv style ones and a couple of hand push along ones.

Anyone have something they feel works?

 

[HappyHollyDays]

In a similar position and have moved mine because with 7 trees it was a losing battle. Once everything has dropped I’m going to take a leaf blower to the track.

 

[paddy555]

Anyone have something they feel works?

chainsaw and log burner.

 

[Marigold4]

I wish! I'm doing the same as you walking up and down, line by line, hour by hour. I'd rather get them up as they fall before they work their way down. Grass is still growing here so I feel I might miss some if I don't. Once tree stops shedding I will go over the worst bits with leaf blower in reverse.

Tree is in neighbour's garden otherwise it would defo be chainsaw and woodburner. They have agreed to having it cut back though.

 

[PurBee]

We got an ’Agrifab heavy duty’ towed sweeper to use with a compact tractor. Not for sweeping sycamore seedlings but grass clippings/leaves on fields.

It’s useless! Truly - we even modified it to improve the design and even then it wasnt worth the diesel in the tractor to ride over and over again the same patch of land sweeping up hardly anything!

The wheels and the sweeper are a locked gearing - so the sweeper goes around when the wheels roll. The trouble is this gearing is far too tight - the wheels are micky-mouse plastic with no traction grip at all, so all you end up doing is dragging the sweeper along the wheels arent going around.
The sweeper isnt round bristled like the older sweepers, its a paddle-type design. The force required for the paddles to swiftly turn require looser gearing and tyre-traction wheels. The paddle design of the brush is what lets it down.
Also, a year later all the metal parts had a layer of rust, some so severe the parts snapped - so its made from monkey-metal too.

Weve tried it on all heights/speeds/all environments/modified the damn thing..,.we left bad reviews for it to warn others not to waste 600 quid but the company remove the reviews!

I used a different towed leaf sweeper on an older sit on mower from the 1980’s. It has a round sweeping brush, gearing very loose so you could easily push it by hand if needed. It was fabulous, and picked up everything. Using that made me buy the agri-fab one - but i didnt realise the design of them can vary so much.

If you go for a sweeper, look for one with a round bristle brush - avoid any that have the bristles in a line.

I use a back-pack leaf blower heavy duty stihl machine. Got it secondhand cheap and it works really well to blast everything out of the grass. It works well on long grass.
I have a handheld leaf blower but theyre not as powerful and would make wrists ache after 15 mins use. The vibrations travel up the hands too, so if you need to use it for a large area, it’s time consuming and uncomfortable. The backpack one can blow an acre field in half hour. Id highly recommend it for sycamore seeds that are hiding in the grass. A sweeper, if you found a modern one that actually works as described!…would struggle to sweep buried leaves and seeds if the grass is long. Sweepers work best on medium to short grass. With a backpack leaf blower you can guarantee you will blast everything out of the grass and get it all removed. A sweeper, working well, would get 80%.

 

[Cocorules]

I fence them off until January by which time the squirrels have mostly done their work. Anything left then is leaf blown/raked off.

 

[paddy555]

We got an ’Agrifab heavy duty’ towed sweeper to use with a compact tractor. Not for sweeping sycamore seedlings but grass clippings/leaves on fields.

It’s useless! Truly - we even modified it to improve the design and even then it wasnt worth the diesel in the tractor to ride over and over again the same patch of land sweeping up hardly anything!

The wheels and the sweeper are a locked gearing - so the sweeper goes around when the wheels roll. The trouble is this gearing is far too tight - the wheels are micky-mouse plastic with no traction grip at all, so all you end up doing is dragging the sweeper along the wheels arent going around.
The sweeper isnt round bristled like the older sweepers, its a paddle-type design. The force required for the paddles to swiftly turn require looser gearing and tyre-traction wheels. The paddle design of the brush is what lets it down.
Also, a year later all the metal parts had a layer of rust, some so severe the parts snapped - so its made from monkey-metal too.

Weve tried it on all heights/speeds/all environments/modified the damn thing..,.we left bad reviews for it to warn others not to waste 600 quid but the company remove the reviews!

I used a different towed leaf sweeper on an older sit on mower from the 1980’s. It has a round sweeping brush, gearing very loose so you could easily push it by hand if needed. It was fabulous, and picked up everything. Using that made me buy the agri-fab one - but i didnt realise the design of them can vary so much.

If you go for a sweeper, look for one with a round bristle brush - avoid any that have the bristles in a line.

I use a back-pack leaf blower heavy duty stihl machine. Got it secondhand cheap and it works really well to blast everything out of the grass. It works well on long grass.
I have a handheld leaf blower but theyre not as powerful and would make wrists ache after 15 mins use. The vibrations travel up the hands too, so if you need to use it for a large area, it’s time consuming and uncomfortable. The backpack one can blow an acre field in half hour. Id highly recommend it for sycamore seeds that are hiding in the grass. A sweeper, if you found a modern one that actually works as described!…would struggle to sweep buried leaves and seeds if the grass is long. Sweepers work best on medium to short grass. With a backpack leaf blower you can guarantee you will blast everything out of the grass and get it all removed. A sweeper, working well, would get 80%.

I think the thing that would work the best to get both leaves, sycamore seeds and even pine needles off grass be it long or short is a paddock cleaner. That simply sucks the seeds up. I don't really have sycamore but I have hoovered up pine needles and leaves. It gets the grass very clean. I would have thought for a anyone trying to get rid of sycamore seeds a sucking machine rather that a blowing one would work the best.

 

[Patiencepending]

We got an ’Agrifab heavy duty’ towed sweeper to use with a compact tractor. Not for sweeping sycamore seedlings but grass clippings/leaves on fields.

It’s useless! Truly - we even modified it to improve the design and even then it wasnt worth the diesel in the tractor to ride over and over again the same patch of land sweeping up hardly anything!

The wheels and the sweeper are a locked gearing - so the sweeper goes around when the wheels roll. The trouble is this gearing is far too tight - the wheels are micky-mouse plastic with no traction grip at all, so all you end up doing is dragging the sweeper along the wheels arent going around.
The sweeper isnt round bristled like the older sweepers, its a paddle-type design. The force required for the paddles to swiftly turn require looser gearing and tyre-traction wheels. The paddle design of the brush is what lets it down.
Also, a year later all the metal parts had a layer of rust, some so severe the parts snapped - so its made from monkey-metal too.

Weve tried it on all heights/speeds/all environments/modified the damn thing..,.we left bad reviews for it to warn others not to waste 600 quid but the company remove the reviews!

I used a different towed leaf sweeper on an older sit on mower from the 1980’s. It has a round sweeping brush, gearing very loose so you could easily push it by hand if needed. It was fabulous, and picked up everything. Using that made me buy the agri-fab one - but i didnt realise the design of them can vary so much.

If you go for a sweeper, look for one with a round bristle brush - avoid any that have the bristles in a line.

I use a back-pack leaf blower heavy duty stihl machine. Got it secondhand cheap and it works really well to blast everything out of the grass. It works well on long grass.
I have a handheld leaf blower but theyre not as powerful and would make wrists ache after 15 mins use. The vibrations travel up the hands too, so if you need to use it for a large area, it’s time consuming and uncomfortable. The backpack one can blow an acre field in half hour. Id highly recommend it for sycamore seeds that are hiding in the grass. A sweeper, if you found a modern one that actually works as described!…would struggle to sweep buried leaves and seeds if the grass is long. Sweepers work best on medium to short grass. With a backpack leaf blower you can guarantee you will blast everything out of the grass and get it all removed. A sweeper, working well, would get 80%.

thank you this is really helpful and you’ve probably just saved me the £ from an agri fab.