Loosening soil on reclaimed strip mine

[Bobcat335]

I recently bought a 50 acre piece of property in Central Pennsylvania. The majority of the property is reclaimed strip mines. I also recently purchased a new Bobcat CT335 tractor with the plans of installing some food plots and doing some property enhancements. The soils on the site are very compact and rocky, as you would expect on a reclaimed strip mine. I'm looking into buying an implement to loosen the soil, but i'm unsure what would be the best choice given the nature of the soil (ex. 1 or 2 bottom plow, chisel plow, subsoiler, ripper, tiller, ). I'm going to need a set of disks, but i'm unsure how to get the soil loosened up properly before disking

Any recommendations or guidance would help tremendously, Thanks

 

[dex3361]

Welcome to TBN. Most of the strip mines I have been around have very rocky shallow soil. I don't think a plow would work. You may loosen it up with a set of disks but the the rocks would cause a problem. I would think a Box blade with rippers would be a start. If you rent a box blade and see how it works and if it not rocky then get a set of discs. You could be like me and but both (I am addicted to implements).

 

[charlz]

How rocky is 'rocky'? Is there any top soil at all or is it mostly just subsoil? I am wondering if it is rocky enough to justify renting a skidsteer with a 'rockhound rake' and then using the tractor to maintain the plots later on via disk, harrow etc.?

 

[Bobcat335]

No topsoil, mostly subsoil. Vegetation does grow well. A company came in and put in a Abanoned Mine Drainage treatment system to treat acidic waters. They disturbed where i want to put my food plot and reseeded with clover and it grew really well. They had some big equipment to move dirt/rocks around.

There are some big rocks that i would remove prior to putting any equipment to the soil. Most other rocks within the top 6" are fist size or smaller.

I was thinking of maybe renting a tiller after using a box blade per comments from dex3361

 

[jenkinsph]

I think something like a Harley rake would be ideal for your purposes, seems you need to loosen the soil and windrow the rocks to pick them up. I don't think it would be a good idea to till deep in your case, you likely would just bring more rocks to the surface.

A good Harley rake isn't cheap but hopefully you saved some money on the land purchase to help defray the cost.

 

[Dirtnut]

Depending on how much work you want to do (picking rocks)a box blade with rippers on it will do fine. I live on top of a mountain with rocky soil that is only 12 inches deep to bedrock. I did a 1 acre plot with my box blade the first year limed & fertilized had a real good growth.Then i got a scarifier & disk to make a better seed bed,well neither one worked i had to pick rocks forever till i can now use them. It does make a nicer job but i can not say it made anything grow better. Save your money on the equipment & put it towards lime/fertilizer.I plan on doing another plot in the spring & the box blade is all that will be used.

 

[rambler]

Don't know much about your part of the country, nor about mine land.

Is it a clay & rock soil, or a gravely & rock soil that is compacted from heavy equipment?

I wouldn't want to go deep assuming you have a shallow soil and many more rocks below. Going deep brings up all the bad stuff.

The back blade might be about as good as anything. For $300 you can usually pick up an old Dearborn field cultivator/ chisel plow 'here', they don't go as deep as a real chisel plow, but are spring loaded & handle rocks better than a 'weak' field cultivator. If you could find some such, you will curse the rocks it picks up, but it will work up & level and make a nice ground, if you want a bit more of an ag type equipment to cover more ground. A disk tends to pack clay ground especially, so if your problem is packed ground, a disk only will make your problems much worse. In the clay farmland I live in, we all gave up on disks 30 years ago, only use them for special cases, otherwise a field cultivator (or the teeth from the box blade) are much better.

Letting nature mellow things for a year with rain & freezing several feet deep takes care of hard soil 'here', you might not get as much frost.

Assuming you want to get more & more of the land - most all of it - in good shape over a few years, a soil test & getting a good clover or better alfalfa growing will help with the soil build up.

Just random thoughts, in the prairie soils of southern MN I'm maybe way wrong for what you are dealing with.

--->Paul

 

[sweettractors]

I recently bought a 50 acre piece of property in Central Pennsylvania. The majority of the property is reclaimed strip mines. I also recently purchased a new Bobcat CT335 tractor with the plans of installing some food plots and doing some property enhancements. The soils on the site are very compact and rocky, as you would expect on a reclaimed strip mine. I'm looking into buying an implement to loosen the soil, but i'm unsure what would be the best choice given the nature of the soil (ex. 1 or 2 bottom plow, chisel plow, subsoiler, ripper, tiller, ). I'm going to need a set of disks, but i'm unsure how to get the soil loosened up properly before disking

Any recommendations or guidance would help tremendously, Thanks

A implement such as this Fred Cain Field cultivator would work nice with the ability to change depth and also each tine is spring loaded to auto reset when going over rocks etc--Ken Sweet

 

[Iplayfarmer]

If you mention rocky at all, a tiller is not the way to go. You'll beat yourself, your tractor, and the tiller all at least half to death. In my experience, the best tool for really hard ground is ripper bar. Here is one that I did a while back, and I got a lot of good advice.

Sweet's advice on the cultivator makes sense too.

 

[tommu56]

Bobcat335

I'm thinking a york rake that way you could windrow the rocks and it will rough it up enough to plant

If you are any were Mill Hall Webs supper grow is a good place for seed and lime ect they have carts that you can use to spread pulled behingd a pickup or tractor.
The guy next to my place up there did his field in buck wheat and drug it with a piece of chain link fence and it was done.

tom