Pasture renovation advice

[corvettefarmer]

After months of renovation work on a couple of rental houses, I'm finally getting back to my tractor work. I have 40 acres of mostly pasture land and
am wanting to level and seed for both beef cattle and horses. I've removed quite a few stumps so the ground really needs to be turned over then dragged to level. I have a large, heavy drag to smooth the land, but have nothing to dig-up, turn-over the ground etc. My question is - if you could only buy 1 piece of equipment, what would you recommend? I live in Florida so the ground is sand. I have a JD 5083 tractor, a couple of mowers, box blade but not much else. I'll be doing this in phases - maybe 10 acres at a time.

Thanks Jim

 

[vtsnowedin]

After months of renovation work on a couple of rental houses, I'm finally getting back to my tractor work. I have 40 acres of mostly pasture land and
am wanting to level and seed for both beef cattle and horses. I've removed quite a few stumps so the ground really needs to be turned over then dragged to level. I have a large, heavy drag to smooth the land, but have nothing to dig-up, turn-over the ground etc. My question is - if you could only buy 1 piece of equipment, what would you recommend? I live in Florida so the ground is sand. I have a JD 5083 tractor, a couple of mowers, box blade but not much else. I'll be doing this in phases - maybe 10 acres at a time.

Thanks Jim

The need to turn over to me reads plow. Then you need a disk harrow to do it right. Then a plank drag of some sort to smooth out the work and set the seed. I don't know of one implement that will get all that done.

 

[sam5570]

our exprience with making pasture out of wooded land first we took soil samples and went to our local extenision office and what we found out was the dirt on top was a lot more sutible for planting or broadcasting seed than the dirt 4 inches under it all we had to do was put 2 ton of lime per acre we did that every other year for 4 years it's now a hay field with ochard grasss and clover has never been plowed we just tookk a dozer and leveled it the and drug it for the rocks we were told we didn't want to turn the rich dirt under and we didn't i know with all the leaves that had roted and went to soil the dirt was black and the dirt abuot 4 inches deep was alot lighter may be diferent in your area hope this helps depends on how deep you want to go when you turn the ground im not to up on the new types of equiptment but a sod plow souds like what you might use they use them here to turn the ground insted of plowing and discing before planting corn not sure if thats proper name looks kinda like the old type har.

 

[Carykong]

chisel plow followed by a disc plow

 

[Bigfoot62]

You need one of these:
Hay King Renovators

 

[sweettractors]

Used Dearborn 2 Disc Turning Plow, WE WILL SHIP CHEAP VERY FAST AND CHEAP | eBay

We have several disc plows for turning "new ground" Link above. Ken Sweet

 

[remington270]

As another guy mentioned above, I would be very careful in Florida turning over the ground. You may be ruining the topsoil with a disc plow/ turning plow.
I would recommend a heavy duty disc or even an offset disc.
Bottom line: check your topsoil depth.

 

[savageactor7]

if you could only buy 1 piece of equipment, what would you recommend

Here in CNY if someone asked me that question I'd recommend getting a brush hog to knock down the brush and weeds. Just doing that will leave you a nice pasture. I suppose I'd fill in those holes with sand before letting any animals in...esp horses they're accident prone.

 

[remington270]

The bush hog suggestion is actually a really good one.

 

[corvettefarmer]

Thank you for the replies. You have me re-thinking my original plan. I've taken soil samples before and will do again before I start any field work. I'm going to try and get the county extension out and see what they think but I'm leaning towards the suggestion of bringing in sand to fill the holes, drag to even out and then cover the "holes" with some topsoil. I'll update with the county's suggestions and with my final plan.

thanks again