How to get a pasture to bare dirt?

[MAX-24-Dean]

Clover grass mix is what I have on my 2 acre lawn, the deer love it! Well grandkids too, but we have a bee warning with them.

Roundup kills clover, that is why they advertised getting rid of the weeds and that clover was a weed when it first came out.
Don't know how long you would have to wait to plant clover after using roundup? Maybe someone can answer that.

Had a similiar stituation and used a plow to roll everything over to decompose for the winter. Disked, ran a cultivator with a cultipacker over it, then broadcast seed. Neighbor used his ATV pulling a screen to get minor cover with soil. Worked out very good.

 

[hosspuller]

Appreciate lots of good answers here. Only equopmen I have is a brush hog. I can rent other equipment. Plan is to use the area as a lawn where kids can run around and not twist an ankle. Will use a different species than the field grass there now. Wondering about clover as low maintenace

At last... The end result desired. In this case, the goal is a smooth lawn. Any ground disturbance such as plowing, disking, etc. is going to create more low spots and weeds as seed is brought to the surface from the weed bank.

As posted before, I would bring in soil or sand to level the area. Then depending on the grass desired, kill existing grass & replant or overseed existing .

 

[paulsharvey]

Can't speak to the clover question, but for what you want; I would spray broad spectrum herbicide (Glyosphate), then spread sand or fill over the low areas; taking care to track it in with your tires, so they don't settle later. Anything that is more than say, 1.5" higher than the surrounding area, I would cut off and put that in some of the low areas. General for a yard type area, your wanting no more then gradual plus or minus 1.25" on the grading. It doesn't need to be flat, just smooth. Then, I would spot spray anything that props up, and then seed and straw, around 200 lbs per acre, and track the seed in. Then, spread a light layer of bedding straw or hay to retain moisture. Straw is harder to come by and more expensive, but you don't get the weed seeds from the hay. Hay works fine, just realize you are introducing lot of weed seeds.

Not knowing your soil, another totally different approach could be rent a 2 ton vibratory roller and smash the high areas down to match the lows. Basically work it at N to S, then NE to SW, then E to W, then SE to NW, ext; spray and reseed, and cover with straw or seed. Note; I don't mean a 50-200;gallon poly water tank they sell as a yard roller; those might level ant hills; but they won't move native soils.

Seeding; your going to want maybe top 3/4" of the soil kinda loose, but not deeper than that.

Nobody has mentioned Hydroseed yet, but where I am, nobody does that on a small scale; your area might be different.

If you have poor draining clay soils, on fairly flat terrain, you will need/want some minor swaled areas to channel the water away to where you want it to go.

You can probably get by running 4 or so tripod sprinklers to get things growing, but you will need to move them 3 or 4 times per day to keep things moist.

With seeding; you probably want a mix of fast germination seed, mixed in with your main seed.

 

[jeff9366]

Wondering about clover as low maintenace.

We need to know your location to answer this properly.

 

[bsekf]

Are you in an agricultural area? Go talk to the local farmers. They will have the equipment and know the area soils. Here is WNY we have reverted old meadows to rough lawn just by constant mowing, you will need a finish mower or a bigger zero turn. Just your brush hog will get you started. I mowed our Rod and Gun Club with a brush hog for years. The clover and grasses will come back and you can always frost seed in the late winter. Some of these ideas will involve a large financial investment.

 

[CliffordK]

I guess anything would work. So long as it's too many of em.
I think of horses as being too selective compared to goats.

We had a pony on a diet when I was young. Tie him to a tree, and everything around it became bare very quickly, although, perhaps not dead, just super short.

 

[CliffordK]

For a small area, I like a tiller better than a plow and disc. You can do a couple of passes if needed. Once you have it ground up, you can try pushing dirt around with the bucket, or a land plane.

 

[Trevj]

Glyphosate has a pretty short effective life in use, and is liable to be the most effective means available to burn off the overgrowth. If you can apply when the overgrowth is pretty dry, or stressed, and cut down to a low level, even better. Glyphosate will kill about anything. It has to make surface contact with the plant's leaves to work.

2-4-D, in my experience, has lasting effects, and I don't like it for other than spot application on persistent broad leaf weeds like Burdock. It is sold under the trade name of Grazon, and is supposed to be safe for animals to be eating on pretty much immediately after spraying, but I have noted that manure or mulch taken off sites that it has been used upon, retain some potency and can wipe out a garden. Grazon/2-4-D, does not kill grasses.

To get better information about the work needed, you really need to provide some location, or at least, a realistic description of the actual soil conditions in your area. In some areas, if you find a rock, it fell out of someone's pocket. In others, you go through a lot of rocks, to find enough soil to get more than a lichen to grow, eh?

 

[NUTTERDW]

A 4-WD tractor of 2,544 pounds weight will handle a 2 X 12" or 2 X 14" moldboard plow readily.

Mahindra 3215​

2006 - 2008 15 Series Compact Utility tractor Mitsubishi built

Dimensions
Length:	121.3 inches 308 cm
Width:	59.8 inches 151 cm
Operating weight:	2,544 lbs 1153 kg (gear)

Mechanical
Chassis:	4x4 MFWD 4WD

All we ever had on the farm was a 23 hp Farmall two wheel drive and plowed for 40 years with a two bottom plow 12 Inches width.

 

[1428v]

Pigs will do the job in half the time! ;-)

This. Ask me how I know.