A Cut Above

Whether he’s growing a forest of tall, stately, longleaf pines or clearing out marshy acres of snarling Florida brush, Terry Putnal is taking his business in multiple directions — thanks to his small, versatile fleet of machines. Putnal and Associates LLC is a land clearing and tree planting contractor based in Madison County, Fla., and the company’s small crew of employees can brush hog acreage, plant timber, spray trees and give you a little advice on keeping busy.  

“The current economy of our country has impacted everyone,” says Putnal. “You’ve got to be versatile — you can’t stick to one thing or you’ll starve to death. The use of compact equipment has allowed us to compete, completing projects more efficiently at a lower cost to the client than those contractors running larger equipment.”

Since 2006, Putnal and Associates has been growing its range of environmental services in north Florida, near the Georgia border. The small, minority-owned business is a family affair (daughter Lesley Bontrager is president), and despite the difficult economy over the last few years, the business has continued to steadily grow. Putnal grew up in the farming community, which is where he learned the value of using the proper equipment to accomplish a job. Using compact equipment, Putnal and Associates is able to clear land for all types of applications — site prep, environmental thinning and hunting projects — as well as offer a growing portfolio of other services — tree care, timber planting and spraying operations.

“We’ll do it all,” says Putnal. “In our surrounding counties, the paper company sold like 40,000 acres four years ago and it was subdivided. We did a lot of work for developers as they began to develop this land, cutting out lot lines with mowing machines and mulching heads. They’d sell a lot and its timber and they didn’t have the means to clean it up. Most of the other local guys have bigger equipment and can’t do it or won’t do it, so we just swoop right in. It works out real well for us. I saw a need to do this small stuff — 5, 10, 20, 40, 100, 500 acres, whatever. We’ve found a nice little niche here.”

Machines in the Trees

Today Putnal and Associates LLC runs a tight crew of two employees. It brings on additional help as needed, but primarily relies on the big power provided by its nimble and tough compact equipment to finish big and small jobs around Florida. When it comes to brush hogging, Putnal capitalizes on two compact track loaders — a 2010 Terex PT-100 Forestry unit and a 2006 ASV Posi-Track RC85. Both can be outfitted with a Davco mower, six-way dozer blade, stacker rake, TimberAx mulching head, Ambusher bush hog, buckets or pallet forks.

“The recent purchase of a Terex PT-100 has allowed us to clear land in a more efficient manner,” explains Putnal. “We have an RC85, which has served us well in the past, but the forestry package on the PT-100 with the pressurized cab allows the operator to work in a more comfortable environment. The reversible fan allows the machine to better keep debris off of and out of the radiator, allowing the machine to operate at a cooler temperature in extremely hot and dusty conditions. The tracks provide excellent traction and floatation in all of our various working environments.”

Like little Sherman tanks, the compact track loaders roll onto a project site like heavy armor. The tracked loaders clear heavy brush on acreage, scalping it for development, agricultural or general thinning. The company also relies on a Kubota KX61-2 excavator to dig up the root systems of unwanted vegetation, unearthing stumps and pulling out aggressively-growing bramble and shrubs.  

“The Kubota looks like a tinker toy, but it ain’t,” says Putnal. “If so, it is the best toy we’ve ever bought. That Kubota engine is the best engine they ever made. You can run that machine eight hours on 5 gallons of fuel. And that’s one thing about the Terex machine I didn’t mention. It’s a 100 horse, compared to the 86 horse of the RC85, and they both burn the same amount of fuel doing the same job. So that new turbocharged engine gets great fuel economy.”

Putnal and Associates also runs two tractors — a 2010 John Deere 5085M and a 2004 John Deere 5105. These chore tractors can provide land clearing support, equipped with a bush hog, Lawson chopper or a scalper, but these ag utility machines are also used to plant, nurture and grow new realms of nature. Attached to a Whitfield tree planter, the tractors help crews plant forests of longleaf pines for customers. The tractors also run multi-use spray rigs for applying herbicides to growing timber.

“Pine straws are pretty big around this area,” says Putnal. “They bail it and ship it up to folks in your area to put in their flower beds and other things. So the longleaf pines are a big thing right now. We can clean up your land, whether it’s 5 or 5,000 acres, plant these pines, and in eight years, you could be bailing straw and making $250 or $300 an acre. That’s Christmas money — that’s what I call it.”

Putnal knows what he’s talking about. His family also owns 700 acres of land in Lafayette County where his family grows longleaf pines, mowing around, spraying and producing his own forest of trees. He then hires a contractor to come in every year and bail the pine straw, adding another revenue source to his evolving business model.

Growing a Business  

Since Putnal grew up with an agriculture background, he is experienced with working on machines, maintaining a fleet and spec’ing out jobs. When he decided to start his land clearing company, Putnal invested in a brand new 2006 ASV Posi-Track RC85. That machine would cost him $70,000 properly outfitted, but he would end up paying it off in six months as his business blossomed. But it wasn’t all easy money. He had to learn how to properly bid a land clearing project, crunching equations for machine cycles, man hours and project duration.  

“Once you do it long enough, you can go look at a job and say this’ll take me so many hours to do,” explains Putnal. “If you don’t want to do that, you can work by the hour. Just try to please whoever. But the way I learned is that you have to eat a few jobs. When I started, there was no one around who had a machine like mine that could tell me how long it would take to clear this and that — so I would guess. So you’re not going to make a killing with that machine right out of the gate. By the time I bid my second and third job, I knew what it could do and how long it would take me. There were a few projects I had to eat, but I went ahead and charged the people what I said, hoping they’d recommend me to someone else. You’ve got to stick to your word.”

Putnal and Associates relies heavily on word of mouth to secure new projects. One day the company will be called in to tear down 50 acres, so a developer can put up new homes. The next week will be filled with planting pine trees or cutting out shooting lanes for sportsman clubs and large acreage owners. “Hunters will spend    some money,” laughs Putnal. Of course every job means tackling north Florida forest, cutting through gallberry shrubs, braken ferns, buttonbush, devil’s claws and native sand pines to clear land tracts for new opportunities. The ground conditions can range from sand and clay to marsh and swamp, with the occasional snake, skunk, gator, wild pig and pesky bug population swarming your operations.  

“While clearing land we routinely run across swamps with the known reptiles, as well as what we call in

Florida sugar sand, which can make our progress difficult,” says Putnal. “Due to development of Florida and the surrounding areas, we have found that smaller equipment is more versatile in these conditions.”

But even compact machinery will eventually pay the price toiling in Florida’s harsh environmental applications. Putnal spearheads all of his own maintenance programs at his home shop. The business of brush hogging, cutting, planting, digging and burning off hectares of wild land will take a toll on your machines, so be ready for constant upkeep.

“We do everything from changing the oil every 100 hours to changing the engine out,” says Putnal. “With the mowing and the mulching, our operations create this really fine dust, and north Florida already has sandy soil anyway. So during the dry times, we have a real fine dust and that’s one of the only things that seems to hurt these machines.”

With proper upkeep, smart operation and focused project tasks, Putnal and his fleet of tool-carrying equipment can help clear or maintain your land in north Florida. His two-man crew will pull up to your jobsite with a 30-ft gooseneck trailer, pulled by a GMC or Chevrolet truck, hauling track loaders, tractors, tree planters and attachments. They’ll offer you a fair price, a job well done and maybe a little advice.  

“There was a guy who my father bought five acres from in a subdivision not far from where we live,” says Putnal. “We went in and clear-cut and cleaned it up. We then planted it with pines. Now he’s got a farm, so he lowered his tax base by going to ag, instead of residential. There are other people catching on to this. There again we found another niche. As we grow and the economy grows, so will our fleet of compact equipment.”

Keith Gribbins is managing editor of Compact Equipment, based in Peninsula, Ohio.