filling in potholes in the field

[peteinthehills]

Hi
In the bad floods we had last year, our bottom field was twice heavily flooded with fast moving water. It has swirled around trees and small holes to make a lot of pot holes. Some are seriously huge and deep and those I'm going to avoid just now, but for the others, what is the best way of filling them again?
I finally got on to it with my new bush hog and I'm worried about damaging it.

Would a grader blade help? or perhaps a harrow? or one of those cultivators with fixed tines to drag material in to the holes.

I really don't want to have to trailer in a lot of top soil and fill them by hand!

Pete
Texas

 

[boggen]

box blade
FEL (front end loader)
rear blade

box blades normally come with scraficier teeth that can be dropped and help tear up the ground, so you can then get a better hold of the dirt with the box blade itself. box blades better at filling in holes per say.

rear blades shift dirt side to side

FEL you can back drag with them, some folks get tooth bars for them to help dig better with a FEL

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for an actual machine a dozer might be a better option.

TNT (top and tilt) for 3pt hitch it either replaces top link, and/or 1 and/or both side links with a hydrualic cylinder. for any ground engagement equipment (box blades, rear blades) this can be rather handy, in being able to adjust 3pt hitch on the go from seat of tractor.

check out Tractor Attachments And Skid Steer Attachments For Any Tractor Or Skid Steer good place for newbies to watch some videos of what is other there, how to set it up and then how to use it.

motor grader see examples for sale at www.machinerytrader.com

you also have land plan, NOT land plain / grader scrapers for gravel driveways. but a land plain. if 3pt hitch rear blade is to a motor grader, then a 3pt hitch box blade would be to a land plain. land plains more for filling in low spot and taking out high spots, and removing any sort of low/how spots in a much bigger area than what a box blade would provide.

 

[jeff9366]

It has swirled around trees and small holes to make a lot of pot holes. Some are seriously huge and deep and those I'm going to avoid just now, but for the others, what is the best way of filling them again?

Tell us the dimensions of the holes.

What is the field used for? Is the field sloped?

How deep is your top soil? River bottom top soil can be fairly deep.

When filling holes you do not want to mix top soil with less fertile or infertile sub soil.

 

[oosik]

I might even add a land plane grading scraper to boggen's list. FEL might work on "seriously huge and deep" holes.

Pictures of your situation would help with all this speculation and guessing.

 

[peteinthehills]

The problem holes are probably a foot round and a foot deep. There are a couple of really large depressions which area foot deep and 6 foot across. The worst of the big holes are 2-3ft deep and 2-3ft wide but those are on the edge of the field and can be ignored for now. The soil is compacted sand with only a thin layer of soil.

The field is used for grazing and possibly a hay crop if I can get it back under control after a two years lying fallow and all the weeds taking over before we bought the place.

I think a box blade might do the job and I think I know a mate who has one.

thanks

Pete

 

[jeff9366]

Is your tractor designated correctly?

tractordata.com shows "NO RESULTS" FOR Mitsubishi FD2020.

We cannot make useful recommendations without knowing what implements your tractor is capable of pulling.

 

[Cataclysm]

You could run a chisel over that a couple of times followed by a disc and come out just fine. Do the whole field while your there if you want to rejuvenate it. You would be surprised how good that field will look 2 months later.

I just did that to 25 acres of 1 foot tall gopher mounds. I am amazed at how green that field is now and the Bermuda grass is growing like crazy!

 

[Grandad4]

If you have access to a tractor with a loader, filling in ruts and washouts can be a pretty simple job. You'll need a source of fill material... either from a high spot, a hillside or even a truckload hauled in from elsewhere. Just like a roadcrew patches potholes in the asphalt, use your loader to fill in where needed. A rear blade, the loader or even hand tools can even it out.

I've found this approach to be much easier than opening up a wide area around each rut so the entire area can be re-levelled.

 

[Thomas]

Kinda depends if your in hurry of sort...if not,FEL digging back dragging,scraper blade pulling reshape area,but I would lean towards box scraper.

 

[peteinthehills]

Well spotted, its actually a FD2050...at least that's what it says on the tractor...it's gray market...but that doesn't appear on tractordata.com either...

Is your tractor designated correctly?

tractordata.com shows "NO RESULTS" FOR Mitsubishi FD2020.

We cannot make useful recommendations without knowing what implements your tractor is capable of pulling.