I don't know about the disease part, but I do know they're nuisances. If you grind them, you will just be grinding them down to the surface of the soil. It may take some years for them to rot, although they are softwoods, which might make a difference. If you want to plant much, they'll probably be in your way. Stump farms are hard to plant.

Pulling them up will require heavy equipment, and then you have to decide what you're going to do with all the stumps. Here, they burn them, but you may have pollution laws there.

I would suggest calling your local Cooperative Extension Service (see link below) and ask what options you have. I suspect that it's going to be rather expensive.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: U.S. Coop. Ext. Service offices

Why not use the logs to grow mushrooms? See if you can find a supplier of innoculated dowels of something like oyster mushrooms, drill little holes of the right size in the stumps, push the dowels in and maybe seal them with beeswax and with a bit luck your stumps will bear become a food source instead of a nuisance.

It seems a much better way of dealing with stumps - you get a crop of gourmet mushrooms and the stump rots away faster.

looks like you have a choice to make? if they aren't in the way and you can work around them then maybe that is the way to go? can't see any disease issues from a dead bit of wood as it rots away however slowly, the ants dunno enough about carpenter ants to comment.

but if the stumps have to go? then grinding will give you some mulching material and reckon if you call the grinder in then do the lot all at one go, be more economical that way.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I was looking for stump removal ideas about a week ago. The suggestion I thought looked most promising was to help the rotting process - drill holes in stump, put fertilizer in holes, (maybe cover with newspaper?), drench with water, cover with tarp held down with stones. Maybe reapply fertilizer every few weeks. It sounded like a good idea but my solitary stump isn't worth even that much effort to remove.

Check out fungiperfecti.com for inoculated dowels to help decompose and provide yummy mushrooms. They have inoculated chainsaw oil, so cool. Stump remover that would go into 1" bored holes in the stunp to feed bacteria which breaks down the stump faster is just Potassium Nitrate.