Cultipacker or heavy lawn roller: What will work better

[LD1]

A reverse tine tiller would bury the grass clumps, but you don't have one. So next, I would use your cultipacker. If you pulled it from several different directions it should stuff the clumps into the soil. Just remember, the mower ride will not be smooth as glass for a few years.

I used a spike harrow to finish my yard before planting and it took several years for the spike marks to level out.

The tiller IS a reverse rotation.

 

[sixdogs]

Whatever you do to pack it will leave tire marks from the tractor if the soil has any loft in it and tilling will do that. The ground will really need to be packed, lightly worked again and then packed again to get the tire marks out. I like the lawn roller. A spike harrow would work well if you can find one. A "cultimulcher" would be the ideal tool but you aren't likely to find one to borrow. You could drag a landscape rake over it for the last pass after the ground is pretty hard and flat.

For sale is my nice 12 ft wide spike harrow drag as well as an 8 ft chain type reversible drag harrow for anyone local in Ohio. Just time for me to lighten up a little.

 

[boggen]

yuck... you have a lot of "grass root" clumps. drag that junk out of the dirt. chain or drag harrow works nice! chain link fence could work.

chain harrow or chain link fence, i might want mounted to a 3pt hitch boom pole or like. so i could lift the entire chain up off the ground and leave a pile of "roots" at one edge of area. to be cleaned up later.

i don't think a tiller going to do much more for you. and attempting to get smaller clods of dirt. the cultipacker and/or roller will help compaction. but you are talking what looks what 1 to 2 acres of lawn? and it will be "finished mowed"

your landscape rake might work. pending on tines on it.



*shrugs*

 

[sixdogs]

You can rototill the clumps out. I did it on two acres yesterday. Just go two or three times over it in 1st gear @540 and turn it to powder. Use a tiller with the flap all the way down but allowed to float. It will leave soft dirt on the surface. It will bury everything and I do it on about 20 acres a year.

The spike harrow next will take the "loft" or air out of the tilled soil. Then pack it. If tire tracks still show you could use a rock rake or, I use a cultimulcher with the tines just scraping the ground. You don't have one so a roller and some sort of scraper or leveler will have you do. The ground will be flat when done.

I would run your tillage lines from font to back on the property and not cross wise. It will look better and mow easier.

 

[sixdogs]

Here's a picture of a cultimulcher and an area I did with it. Then roll a Brillion seeder over it and flat as a pancake with no lumps. In the second photo the cultivators are not on because I was painting it.

 

[bigtiller]

The tiller IS a reverse rotation.

Great, here is what i always do.

Till it twice, north & south and again east & west, letting it float as deep as it wants to go. Then i till a third time, but i hold the tiller up a little. Just try to till the top half of the fluffy previously tilled soil. That third light tilling is what buries all the junk.

 

[TellGRBill]

I have a stretch of ground that I have shaped to be a watershed for a pond on our farm. I have planted grass on this stretch of ground and now, after the grass matures and is mowed, I am considering regularly running a cultipacker over the ground in the direction of the pond to keep the ground smooth and packed to better shed water. I have never used a cultipacker and need some experienced opinions about using a cultipacker for this use. The ground that I have planted grass in here is pretty light soil

 

[sixdogs]

It probably won't do any good unless the cultipacker is heavy enough, or the ground damp enough to mush the ground a little. If it's heavy enough or the ground damp enough to work, chances are you'll leave ruts in the ground from tire tracks and you'll be worse off than when you started.

This is a guess, because this is an art form, but I think you only have a couple choices. One, you could find a teeny-tiny tractor and pull the mother of all rollers over the ground to pack it. That's choice one and not the preferred option.

I have just driven a tractor with industrial tires on back and forth and packed ground pretty well. It hard to flatten things that are already growing grass. You could also disc harrow it a little when damp and then let it recover for a month and then do it again, maybe adding some seed along the way. Just a thought.

 

[TellGRBill]

Thanks