A drum mulcher on a tracked machine eats standing brush and small trees and leaves behind a carpet of mulch, which is why it has replaced the dozer-and-burn-pile method for most reclaim work in Indiana.
Mulching machines eat brush and trees up to roughly 6–8 inches of stem all day. Bigger stems can be mulched but the pace and wear cost more than dropping those few trees conventionally and mulching around them, so that is usually how we bid it. Stumps get mulched to grade, not extracted; if you need roots gone because something is being built, that spot wants true clearing instead.
Central Indiana mulching typically runs $1,500 to $3,000 per acre: light brush at the bottom, dense mixed growth at the top. Mobilization is the fixed chunk, so acres two through ten cost meaningfully less than acre one, the economics reward doing the whole reclaim at once rather than nibbling a corner each year. Small in-town lots are quoted as half-day or day rates instead.
A mulch layer a few inches deep, walkable immediately, mowable after it settles and composts down over a season. It suppresses the regrowth flush, holds moisture and hands the ground back as usable space instead of raw mud. If you want pasture seed or food-plot ground the same year, tell us, light incorporation and seeding make a clean handoff.