Pasture renovating questions

   / Pasture renovating questions #1  

WTA

Platinum Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
750
I have 25 acres of giant bermuda here that has been in production for 2 seasons now. This will be the third.
We graze our horses on it and bale for hay. Normally I'm on a 28 day cycle with cutting, fertilizing an baling. Last year we really did great and got lucky with timing the cuttings between rain. My yields are down though a little and the ag extension and everyone else tells me I need to run a renovator over it all to aerate the soil and allow the water to work in easier.

The problem is noone around me has a pasture renovator or has even heard of one. I'm planning to build my own soon using a set of fertilizer knives and clymer coulters but it's several months off. I just can't afford it right now.

My neighbor told me to just run my old JD rotary hoe over it once a month. To me that thing is about the most worthless piece of equipment I own. It came with the farm and it may have been useful back when this was all dryland cotton but I've tried pulling it across the pasture and it just barely scratches the surface. I think I'm just wasting fuel with it.

My problem is that in the two years the fields have been producing the ground really has compacted pretty bad. Before we could take a 4 inch rain storm and it would soak in pretty quick. Now if we even get an inch of rain I end up with 3 feet of standing water on the bottom part of my field and it all runs off into the ditch out in front of our property slowly.
I can imagine that it's also taking the hundreds of dollars worth of fertilizer I put out each month with it too. Our soil is mostly sandy loam and a couple acres or randall clay they call it around here. That's in the lowest spot that floods regularly. I'd love to build a pond down there in that clay but I'm sure the fish would not be safe to eat with all the fertilizer I use.

Are there any old farmers tricks to rigging up some other implement to do the job out there or does anyone on here halfway close to Lubbock have a renovator I could possibly borrow for a weekend?

I've been wondering if straightening out the discs on my big offset or maybe replacing the sweeps with points on my chisel plow would work as good as a renovator but my feeling is that either of those options will just tear up the ground too much.
 
Last edited:
   / Pasture renovating questions #2  
I wonder if you could get by with a chisel plow run shallow? Maybe take a few shanks off if need be and make 2 passes at a diagonal?
 
   / Pasture renovating questions
  • Thread Starter
#3  
I was thinking about that. I think I have 16 sweeps on that thing right now. I found long points I could put on it instead of the 2 foot wide sweeps but I wasn't sure if it would tar up the pasture bad. I just want to open the dirt up to let the water and fertilizer in, not completely redo it. With all these factory built renovators like the hay king there isn't supposed to be any real risk of damaging the grass either. They claim it helps increase yields but I've never tried it.

I really just hate seeing hundreds of dollars worth of fertilizer go in the ditch. I bet it will be even worse this year pricewise.
 
   / Pasture renovating questions #4  
You probably wouldn't have to go too deep to accomplish your objectives of letting water in and saving the fertilizer. Don't know how deep your layer of compaction goes though?

I know nothing about bermuda, but I seem to recall it spreads by stolons. If that is correct, and if it is reasonably tough, then this operation should help quite a bit because it will throw up new stems from the cut stolons. Not sure when the best time of year to do this is, but presumably when soil is moist and the roots haven't expended too much energy making grass yet. The roots will need the energy to sprout the cut stolons.

We have quackgrass up here as a serious weed, and it spreads gangbusters if tillage breaks it up and leaves stolons in the ground. Only way to get rid of it through tillage is to harrow it and drag the roots onto the soil surface to dry.
 
   / Pasture renovating questions #5  
I have had great results using an Aerway aerator on my hay meadows. I don't know of anyone around here who has a "renovator" either, but everyone knows "Aerway" even though its a brand, not a type of equipment (kind of like Kleenex is used for tissue). Maybe the vocabulary is what is throwing folks off?
Anyway, I have pulled the Aerway across our meadows twice a year for the past 3 years (and whenever I had time before that) and I have very little runoff, yields are pretty good considering we are still coming out of a multi-year drought, and pulling the Aerway in tandem w/ a 15' chain harrow has helped smooth out some rought spots as well.
Oh, I have done the straight disc thing as well and it does seem to help. But it is a stop-gap at best compared to the Aerway. I don't mean to sound like an Aerway salesman, that is just what I have been using. I saw one the other day made by Landpride and it looked pretty rugged. And it seems I have seen other brands in the last couple of years.
 
   / Pasture renovating questions #6  
The chisel plow with straight shanks should do what you need. A drag harrow would smooth things up nicely. The Aerway rigs are nice. I could have picked one up at auction last fall that was nearly new. It went off pretty cheap. Noboby seemed to know what it was, but the ones I have seen work sure seem to do a great job.
 
   / Pasture renovating questions #7  
I live in South Australia, and I'm looking for something similar. Is there a way to aerate smaller pastures without having to use a tractor?
 
 
Top