Smoothing without removing all vegetation?

[Chris_T]

Thanks for the replies. Ultimately I think we want to have things in good shape for next spring, so there's no huge rush, but Fall is approaching quickly in this part of the world and this gives me something to chew on.

 

[Fireman_dcb]

we bought a 10 acre farm several years ago; 5 acres were covered with pheasant pens. After pulling out the posts and ripping out chicken wire that had been buried 10 inches underground to prevent fox from getting at the pheasants we were left with a disaster..... post holes every 8 feet that were begging to break a horse's leg and a very uneven terrain that would bounce me all over when trying to brush hog the field.

I bit the bullet and had a farmer in the area come over... he tilled the ground first then used a 18' wide disc to go over the ground in three directions, then picked rocks and gave it a final discing before he seeded it and put in soy beans. There was green poking up in about 3 days and now, what a difference! The ground is nice and smooth and I haven't found one remaining post hole to worry about.

The cost to me is that he gets to use the land rent free this year, next year I'll either have him put into soy beans again or I'll pay him to disc it and plant some kind of cold/ warm weather grass.

 

[deereman64]

Would a combination of filling in with sand and rolling work? I doubt you could do it in one pass and you have to wait for the grass to come through. Plus the ground would have to be moist to avoid over compaction from the roller.