Root Grapple Vs. Root Rake

Every year, we help dozens of customers decide if a root rake or a root grapple is a better attachment for their upcoming jobs.

The truth is, the root rake and root grapple are brothers in the attachment market and will accomplish many of the same tasks.

But, of course, they have their individual strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we will address these issues.

Key Takeaway

• Root rake attachments offer more aggressive land clearing at the expense of being able to load the debris for transportation.
• Root grapple attachments are designed to be less aggressive in land clearing but offer easy debris loading, backfilling abilities, and can often be used for a variety of other tasks.

What Is A Root Rake?

A skid steer root rake (BD Root Rake) is an attachment used for land clearing and soil preparation.

Similar to every other rake you’ve ever seen, a skid steer root rake has a row of vertical steel tines designed to penetrate into the shallow topsoil.

When the skid steer pushes the rake along the ground, the tines will rip up shallow roots, rocks, and debris so they can be pushed out of your work area.

An important consideration is that a root rake is a pushing attachment only. You will not be lifting material into a trailer, and you won’t be backfilling with this attachment. You’ll be pushing debris into a pile only.

Tine Dimensions

It’s important to consider the overall tine dimensions of a root rake. Not only because the tine dimensions help determine how durable the rake is, but because the empty space between the tines will determine how small of material you can rake.

The empty space between tines can easily be measured with a measuring tape, but given that it’s 2024 and everyone shops online, you might have to be more creative.

Example

A 78” wide skid steer root rake will normally have 15 tines made of 5/8” wide solid steel. If we plug this into our calculator (I’ll save you the trouble and do the math for you), you’ll find that the root rake has approximately 4.9” of space between tines.

With this information, you can decide if the tine spacing is sufficiently tight enough to clean debris in your work area.

What Is A Root Grapple?

You might be thinking that a skid steer root grapple is just a root rake with a grapple attached. You wouldn’t necessarily be fully correct in thinking this, though.

Although a root grapple is made of a row of vertical tines aligned like a root rake, the design and geometry of the attachment are often quite different.

Most noticeable is that a root grapple’s tines have a much longer horizontal component on the bottom of the attachment. Without this elongation, the grapple on the attachment wouldn’t have the proper support to function.

An astute observer will also notice that there is often a horizontal bar incorporated into the bottom of the root grapple that spans across all of the tines.

Although this is often here to add strength and rigidity, manufacturers often advertise it as a “back-fill bar.” And why not? When dragging the root grapple backward, the bar does an excellent job of backfilling.

Lastly, root grapples often have fewer tines for their width compared to root rakes. This saves weight on the attachment and makes it ideal for lifting and loading rather than raking.

Heavy Duty vs. Severe Duty Root Grapples

Skid steer root grapples are manufactured in different tiers, such as “heavy duty” and “severe duty.”

From my experience, most manufacturers have very similar feature upgrades when moving from their lower (heavy duty) end to the higher (severe duty) end root grapples.

Closed-In Quick Attach Area

The quick attach area of the grapple may be closed in on severe duty models and not on the heavy duty models.

Closing in the quick attach area protects the skid steer from potential damage from stumps and rocks when pushing the attachment along the ground or lifting debris into a pile. The lighter grapples will keep this area open to save weight and manufacturing costs.

Hydraulic Cylinder Covers

On severe duty root grapples, the hydraulic cylinders are usually fully enclosed in steel covers. Given how sensitive hydraulic cylinders and their seals are to damage, this is a very useful and important feature.

Single vs. Dual Clamp

Occasionally, you come across light duty root grapples that have a single clamp.

From my experience, there is no advantage to having a single clamp. The sole purpose of this design is to save the manufacturer material and labor costs.

A single clamp root grapple cannot securely lift an uneven horizontal load. In contrast, in a dual clamp grapple, each grapple is operated by its own hydraulic cylinder, and therefore each clamp can adjust to the load on its side of the grapple.

Comparison

Let’s have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of a root rake and root grapple.

Root Rake Advantages

The root rake attachment is better for land clearing.

By design, the root rake is a much more rigid and stout attachment designed to be pushed hard across the earth. The tight tine spacing ensures all debris, rocks, and roots are picked up.

Additionally, the lack of hydraulics works to its advantage by allowing for a more aggressive design and removing the worry of damaging the attachment while it’s in use.

The absence of moving parts on the Root Rake means you won’t have maintenance downtime either. Aside from the odd pressure wash, nothing else is required to keep your root rake in working order.

Lastly, the compact design of the root rake makes transportation and storage easier - an often overlooked aspect of attachments.

Root Rake Disadvantages

Not being able to lift debris with your root rake means you’ll often need a second attachment to load debris onto a trailer.

However, this disadvantage is largely removed if you aren’t planning on loading and hauling debris. For example, if you are pushing debris into a burn pile only.

Additionally, because root rakes dig into the earth and pull up and remove roots, they create a ton of drag while in operation.

This can make them a challenging attachment to use for underpowered skid steers or for wheeled skid steers with poor traction.

Root Grapple Advantages

The most obvious advantage of the root grapple is its ability to lift and load debris. This usefulness can be used in other areas of your operation as well (e.g., loading logs, moving generators, etc.)

Although root grapples usually have a less aggressive geometry, they often have the ability to backfill.

Depending on your specific needs, the ability to backfill may be considered more important than being able to dig deep into the ground while raking.

Root Grapple Disadvantages

The root grapple prioritizes lifting over raking, therefore it provides a less aggressive rake.

Again, because some projects prioritize lifting and loading material over aggressive raking, this disadvantage may be acceptable to some customers.

Additionally, as with any hydraulic attachment, the addition of hydraulic cylinders and hoses adds a layer of maintenance to owning a root grapple.

Conclusion

In summary, if you want impressively raked land with a clean finish, a root rake should be your attachment of choice.

With a root rake, you will be sacrificing the ability to lift and load the debris all with one attachment. This may not be an issue if you already have a grapple or aren’t planning on hauling away debris.

If hauling debris off your work site is your priority, and you’re not overly concerned with grabbing every rock and root in existence, then a root grapple should be your attachment of choice.