Removing poly twine from fields

[zzvyb6]

Yes. My Yanmar 5' tiller. You don't have to 'burn' it off. (I'm assuming it's plastic twine that you have). Just give it some heat and it will soften and melt so that you will get open clumps of the stuff that fall right off. Try it out on a bunch of balled up twine & see how little heat it takes. BTW: I had help, drive 30', stop raise the tiller, helper cleans it off, keep going. I didn't have to go very deep, just enough to accumulate the stuff. Weeds and grape vines came off, too.

 

[bigtiller]

Was that with a rototiller straight, plow first? What was your process and any lessons learnt? I did a test patch with my woods rotototiller and spent 30 min cutting it loose. Will try the linoleum knife!

It was a new garden spot. All I could see was freshly mowed 3" tall grass.

Process...was to till it like any other garden.

Lessons learnt...don't till old feedlots unless you have lots of time to kill, a sharp knife and like laying on the ground.

30 minutes...that sounds about right, if your using an old pocket knife. Times will shorten if you clamp a 12" long broom stick to the handle of a linoleum knife to help keep your hands away from the tines.

 

[bcp]

Try these in your utility knife.

Long handle utility knives are available.

Here's one:

Equalizer® Urethane Cutting Knife with 3/4

Designed for the extra-long dashes found in today's vehicles Available in 18 or 24 Heavy duty knives have all replaceable parts and a Phillips screw to secure blade tightly Made of high quality aluminum with a steel retaining block for the blade Uses standard utility knife blades...

www.autobodytoolmart.com

Bruce

 

[IndyIan]

How about a disc plow? Maybe will cut it up in short enough lengths not to bother you?

 

[Bloemie]

How about a disc plow? Maybe will cut it up in short enough lengths not to bother you?

I was wondering the same... But was hoping someone tried it. Would the disk break the grass and roots so it pulls out easier.

 

[oldnslo]

I would question disc plow or heavy offset disc effectiveness since suspect twine would catch and wrap vs cut cleanly all the time. No actual experience though.

 

[workinonit]

Go rent a verticutter. It will cut the twine and it sounds like the turf probably needs it done anyway.

 

[sixdogs]

I've turned many farmyards into high-end lawns. Tillers and cultivators work the best assuming you have killed all the grass with glyphosate (Roundup) and have worked the ground. If not, forget it.

First I run my C shank cultivators through the dry ground and this picks up much of the longer pieces. Multiple passes work better. S tine cults are probably too light. The twine is tough and doesn't degrade so long pieces are easy to hook with heavier cultivators.

Then I run a rear rototiller through the dry and worked ground and this picks up most of what's left. Do it a couple times or more.


The tiller doesn't have much in the way of seals for the twine to ruin but I take it off frequently with this tool I made.

I got the shank from Smoky Mountain Knife Works and put it in a broken splitter handle at a slight backward angle. It gets twine off a tiller in seconds. I did a post on this tool once--- post 579 in this thread.

Show What Tool You Made*

What keep that blade from walking off the tires ?:confused: proper alignment. also if you notice the tires have a crown, centrificle force will force the blade to the highest point of the tire, witch is smack in the middle.

www.tractorbynet.com

Here are my cultivators but I use 1 3/4" points and not shovels. The narrow spacing gets all the trash out. This is what the dirt needs to look like for best results. Sod is a waste of time.



Good luck. This is not difficult. I can get nearly every piece of twine and it's no big deal.

 

[Little Red Tractor]

My first thought would be IF and only IF you can do so safely, burn the field off in sections, then disc it with a good heavy disc harrow. Other than that, you're in for a long and tough haul.

 

[tjandrews]

Poly is nice because the mice won't eat it but I cannot think of any other advantage and it becomes a real disadvantage when some 'idiot' (I use that term lightly) is too lazy to pick it up and dispose of it properly.

Agree with the "lazy" comment, but not about there being no advantages to poly over sisal.

The main one is consistency. The last sisal I used varied in thickness from nearly rope to string. It was impossible to set my old baler to tie reliably with it, and when it did tie the twine frequently wouldn't hold. I had not wanted to switch to poly because my father had tried it years before, when it first came out, and it wasn't as good as sisal in his baler. But then one year I was forced to try it when a flood at the warehouse that supplied my supplier's twine ruined all the sisal, but not the poly. It worked so well in the baler that I never looked back.

The second advantage is cost. Poly is MUCH less expensive for me to use than the equivalent sisal, and I don't have extra cash laying around to waste.

To avoid the OP's problem, I simply pick up after myself. Yes, some slips by me from time to time, but not so much that I can't just pick it up when I find it.