pasture rehab

[EastTexFrank]

Yea, hitting those ruts while mowing can really jolt your fillings loose. A few years ago, at the farm, we had a company come in to do some logging and they left well hidden ruts all over the place. Add to that the hog holes and that pasture got to be a challenge to mow without breaking something, equipment and me. We have no real rock problem so I just disced it and disced it. It really didn't take too long to get rid of 12" to 18" deep ruts and holes. The first couple of passes at right angles to one another had to be pretty slow but once I had run over it half a dozen times it was smoothe enough for me. I didn't even drag it. It did turn in a lot of weeds seeds that I sprayed and kept mowed but now you can actually look at the pasture and see the places that I disced because they are a lot "cleaner" than the rest of the pasture. I found that if you change the angle of the discs after the first few passes and make them less aggressive, you can end up with a really smoothe job. The sandy loam soil at the farm really helps too.

 

[B2400]

IMHO I believe the true reason more people responded to the footwear question is due to the fact that more people have experience wearing some preferred type of shoe operating their tractor as opposed to the number of people with experience restoring pasture!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Egon]

Been away for a few days.

If you want proper pasture be prepared to turn it black and smooth with whatever equipment is available to you. Let the natural seeds in the soil grow and then make it black again. Do this three or four times over a period of six months or so and then seed proper pasture grass for your area. Need the time so the soil breaks down properly. It will lose nitrogen when black.

Constant mowing will result in selective grasses that can survive in the short state. If this is what you want then just plant these grasses to began with.

Proper pasture takes a lot of up front work. Otherwise you've got something growing in a field.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif