Buried baling twine... In a grid pattern!

[dougb256]

Hi,

Brand new farm owner here. One of our neighbors cuts and bales the hay from our pasture, and we get a percentage of the profits when it is sold.

He recently did the fall cutting, and we had 2 big stands of Johnson grass and unbaled hay left over. He told us that there's baling twine buried in those two spots and it gums up the work on the baler. My wife and I decided to tackle it, and soon we were pulling up hundreds (if not thousands) of yards of red plastic baling twine. It's around 4-6" under the ground, in a grid pattern, approx 1' space in between the rows. We've asked farmers, ranchers and the Amish about it; nobody can figure out.

Right now we still live in the city and go to the farm on the weekends, so we only have 2 days per week to work on it. I still have some clearing to do, but I think we have it under control, at least for the time being.

Any ideas on the baling twine grid pattern?

Thanks,
Doug

[brandoro]

No idea about the grid pattern but have to wonder how it can possibly affect his baler if it is in the ground. Unless there are lots of ends showing that the baler will pick up?

[greasemonkeyok]

Hmmmm. Does the neighbor know how it came to be there?

[dougb256]

No idea about the grid pattern but have to wonder how it can possibly affect his baler if it is in the ground. Unless there are lots of ends showing that the baler will pick up?

Yes, that is it - the baler gets a short end that sticks out of the ground, it gets wrapped around the machinery and yanks out another long section in the process. They have just been going around it for what
looks like at least a few years, as the prior owners just let the pasture go.

[dougb256]

Hmmmm. Does the neighbor know how it came to be there?

No, he doesn't. He was the first person that we asked about it.

[plowindeeper]

Net wrap bailing twine. Some one feed a bale and didn't remove warp. Cow/Horse stomped it in the ground as they were eating bale????

[dougb256]

Net wrap bailing twine. Some one feed a bale and didn't remove warp. Cow/Horse stomped it in the ground as they were eating bale????

Possible, but one area had buried twine approx 30' x 40'. The second area was bigger, maybe 30' x 60'.

[tcreeley]

Plowed in instead of picked up?

[Artisan]

Some sod has a grid pattern plastic type of mesh to it.

[boggen]

i have seen wire, were a hole was dug, and then wire just tossed into hole, and then dirt put back on top of it.

but physically actually laying things out in a grid pattern and put into the ground on purpose... sounds strange.

if it was laying on top of the ground. say from a old vines, or tomato spot, or some other crop that you might want to hang / tie up some what, to make things for easier harvesting... i might buy into that. and last time the spot was used was years ago. and posts rotted away, and then live stock, to tractors just ran everything over. pushing the stuff some what into the ground.

perhaps last owners had some sort of experiment going. and wanted the wired buried for who knows what reason, and used some sort of metal detector? or like to pin point things out on the grid? vs year after year trying to measure things out with a tape measure and string.

1' x 1' grid. perhaps it is a wire mesh. like used in concrete? and they wanted to get ride of it. so dug a very shallow spot and tossed it in, and covered it back up?