Video Transcript
00:06 Mark Kisto, the president of Tree Story. We handle vegetation management throughout the state of Minnesota. We’ve really narrowed our focus into the utility vegetation management and more commercial land clearing type of work. Currently, what we do, we handle several co-ops in the state of Minnesota, and we’ll maintain about 1,000 miles of line a year. Some of that we use bucket trucks on, some of it it’s a Kwik-Trim. So, a combination of equipment depending on where the trees are and what it is. But generally, it’s about a thousand miles of line a year that we’re maintaining.
00:39 We bought our first Loftness piece of equipment — it was actually on an auction. I think it was back about 2017 and there was a forest head for sale. Didn’t have any stickers on it. Didn’t know what I was getting. So, picked it up and ended up being the first Loftness mulching head that they ever made. We bought it, we ran it and we actually still run it today. So that says something about Loftness. That first head they make is still in operation. Kind of cool to have that one. Since then, yeah, we bought some more Loftness equipment. New Battle Ax S series now running that. It was 2018 I believe we bought our first Kwik-Trim and yeah, that runs almost every day on our utility lines.
01:18 The Kwik-Trim and the Battle Ax kind of run hand in hand on how we utilize them on our utility line clearance. Primarily we’ll run our Battle Ax through first. Clear out the underbrush and then the Kwik-Trim follows in behind as that ground to sky clearance and the Battle Ax follows through and mulches up the material on the ground, cleans it up. Yeah, the Battle Ax seems like a relatively simple mulching head. As far as mechanics, we have had very few problems with it. You’re going to have your routine maintenance of teeth, but you’re able to run the carbides or the hardened steel teeth on it, which is nice when you can switch between the two. If you want a finer mulch, you can put the hard steel teeth on there. If you want to I mean, we run a lot on field edges, so you’re running into rocks all the time, so you generally run our carbide teeth on there. You’re able to gear the head to the machine that you have. So, even if you have a different machine, you can gear it with the hydraulic flow to meet the specs of the machine that you’re running. How it’s geared up and runs on our Bobcat T86, it’s runs really well. You’re able to get really good production with it. The final product of what the material looks like when you’re done, it looks nice.
02:37 On the work that we do, we’re working especially on our utility lines in people’s yards along people’s farm fields. So, we’ve got to be very cognizant of what the final end product of the material looks like. The Battle Ax has a two-stage cutting chamber in it. And what that allows us to do is make a better end product. The particle size is smaller. The material gets ground up to a finer end material size. And the homeowners have been really happy with what it looks like when we’re done.
03:10 When we first started out doing utility line clearance, we were dragging bucket trucks through ditches with skid loaders and we’re like, hey, this doesn’t work. We need to find a better way to do it. Found out Loftness works out well. So we talked to Clint over there and he kind of showed us, hey, this Kwik-Trim, this is what it does. Came out, showed us in operation what it is. So we put it into application. It’s really easy to mobilize spot to spot. You can load it up on a trailer, do a short span or a long span of lines. You can haul it behind a one-ton pickup. Relatively light piece of equipment all said and done. Pretty mobile. Get through ditches, rougher terrain. Pretty impressive what the Kwik-Trim actually goes through.
03:53 I was really impressed with the Kwik-Trim, how it can actually handle slopes. It’s not like an excavator where you have a bucket you can put it down and kind of slide yourself down a slope. You just got an arm that’s sitting out there and it’s performed way better than I expected it to. The Kwik-Trim does provide enough reach for what we do. The trees in Minnesota aren’t too terribly tall. It has in most applications allowed us to get the reach we need. I think it’s about 53 feet of reach that it gets. Most poles are 25 feet. So you’re well over the spans and the height of the lines in in most areas.
04:35 Conditions that we work in. I mean, we’re in Minnesota, so you get everything from the heat of the summer, it’s over 100 degrees, to the cold of winter. We work when it’s 0 degrees out. And also, we get some terrain that you’re running down some really steep slopes. You’re running near farm fields, but also some wet swampy areas. So, we take our equipment in a lot of different temperature situations, but also terrain situations. We need it to perform.
05:06 Customer service has been awesome with Loftness. If we have an issue, you call up Clint or anyone in the parts department, say, “Hey, we need this or what could this problem be?” And they know the equipment inside and out. And they’ve designed it. They built it right in house. So, they know everything that possibly could be wrong. You call them, they got a solution that can get you through the day. If not, they’ll have somebody out there to fix it or you can bring it in and get it fixed. So, it’s been really good how they help us out and are willing to work with us, figure out something, some solution. Parts are always available or a turnaround on if something does break. The turnaround time has been very quick.
05:43 So, Clint’s kind of our go-to guy at Loftness. It’s been been a really good working relationship. There’s been times where they’ve needed help demoing some new motors on a forestry head. So, they’d send out some different motors to us. We run them, give them feedback. So, our guys run them out in the field, test it, and then he’ll send something out. And then the other way, if we got some parts or some things that need help, he knows exactly what it is. And Clint’s been, I mean, really important for us to keep us going and for just information to and from how things work. And it’s it’s been a great working relationship.
