How to prepare large area for hay seeding?

[tdan300]

I am working on an 8 acre chunk. It was an oat field (20 years ago) that has had cattle ran on it every since. Very compacted. A small chunk of it I experimented with plowing, discing, tilling with a 5' tiller, then seeded with a hand spreader. Worked ok, but I think it needed a cultipacker ran over it after seeding. Another chunk was very rough, had to drive tractor very slow or it would beat the heck out of you. I added about 300lbs of weight to a 72 foot set of discs, set to max angle. After breaking the ground good, ran tiller through it. Will seed it with a tractor drawn seeder and then cultipack. I have signed up for the conservation district's not till and will seed the rest this next Friday. Have never used one before, but everyone I talk to says they work well. I am seeding with a hay mix - Fescue, orchard grass, rye mixture with a couple other thrown in, what is recommended for hay in this area. I am also putting a tempory fence around the entire area to keep my cattle out of it. I will have a total of about 5 days of tractor work into it, 1 day of seeding, another 2 days to install about 900 foot of divider fence (temporary to begin with - if hay field works out - permanent later). One advantage, my cattle had the entire area eaten down well, no bush hogging was needed.

 

[RickB]

Pretty good advise so far.
Just remember that one of the worst results is a beautiful, long lasting stand of hay on a field that is so rough it is a PITA to get a crop off. If it is rough or rutted, no-till isn't the answer. A good job of moldboard plowing can smooth out a field a lot; a poor plowing job is difficult to impossible to correct with a disc, especially if sod is plowed under.
The worst thought offered was that of a plow day. Different plows won't match up well, and several different operators working in a field will make a mess in most cases.

 

[Luremaker]

Is there an easy method of test how compacted the field is? I have a ten acre cattle pasture where the hay has really thinned out. Mixed in with the grass is a little red clover and lots of bare spots. I frost seeded with little success last spring. This pasture is very rocky so it would be near impossible to plow or disc.