What implement best for turf grading with compact tractor?

[ukrkoz]

Appreciate all the advice. Waiting on good neighbor's tiller to come from repair. I'll start with tilling high spots and moving loose soil into the depressions. Bucket should do for that. It's gonna look ugly for a year...

 

[arto98607]

Here is what I have used for yard grading and it has worked out pretty good, however the ground will settle down in year or two unless you roll it down with something heavy.

This always works:



But also turning a 6' blade backwards and pulling it behind works surprisingly well:

 

[Cougsfan]

My new pasture was similar to yours. Established grass but very bumpy. This year in late winter when the ground was soft I made several trips over it with a chain harrow with a rail road tie attached on top. It helped a lot without destroying the grass. In fact it as the grass is now coming in, it seems to have helped the grass. It is not perfect, but I think it will level out quite nicely after a few years of repeating this.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I disagree that you can use a Harley Rake on a lawn and get good results. It has no reference for knowing what's level. Sure, you can dump some top soil where you see a depression and the Harley will do a great job at grading it out.

You could remove all the turf from a field using a Harley, but it's certainly not the best tool for that.

 

[DMW]

Some drainage tile would make a huge difference. Trying to change grade without controlling the water seem pretty pointless to me.

 

[ukrkoz]

Here is what I have used for yard grading and it has worked out pretty good, however the ground will settle down in year or two unless you roll it down with something heavy.

This always works:

View attachment 695517

But also turning a 6' blade backwards and pulling it behind works surprisingly well:

View attachment 695516

Aha, so you did use grader blade. Question though do I have. You said - pulling it? Picture shows, you are pushing it, like a dozer blade, aye?

 

[arto98607]

Aha, so you did use grader blade. Question though do I have. You said - pulling it? Picture shows, you are pushing it, like a dozer blade, aye?

No not pushing backwards.
I did the final surface leveling / smoothening by pulling a blade with the tractor going forward and the blade was reversed just like in my photo above. It worked much better than dragging a heavy old chain-link fence gate I tried first.

Prior to that I had done lot of bulldozer work in order to remove stumps & move dirt the way I wanted it, after which I did did lot of rototilling with an old 4' tiller.

The objective was to get proper drainage and reasonably smooth yard after lot of mature Douglas Fir trees were removed due to being too close to buildings.

 

[ukrkoz]

Gotcha. Did you use grading blade as blade though? Facing forward, as it should?

 

[arto98607]

Gotcha. Did you use grading blade as blade though? Facing forward, as it should?

Not much, I used my John Deere 440 ICD (6-way hydraulic blade) for most of the grading.




1959 with 2-53 Detroit Diesel