Box Scraper Smoothing a Bumpy Pasture

[jseebold]

@jeff9366: Thanks a lot for the link to SMOOTHING PASTURE threads! I like the sound of this one... "Ive had luck with a set of disc's set non agressive, as straight as possible, north -south then east-west to make "sod squares" then squash it with a heavy roller. If that wont smooth it then you try a long term method like plow, till, grade then seed."

This sounds like a slightly less aggressive approach, something I can try first, before discing it more aggressively.

 

[jseebold]

Thanks for your excellent ideas Jenkinsph! Your property is AWESOME!! Where are you located? What type of grass did you use? What is a landplane?

 

[jseebold]

Thanks pmsmechanic! That sounds like a good idea and also the least expensive and least aggressive. It sounds like something I could do as a matter of routine maintenance until it gets evened out.

 

[jseebold]

Thanks a lot Brandi, great reference with excellent pics! Hey, I have a cat named Brandi!!

 

[jseebold]

I "reclaimed" about 14 acres with a bottom plow, disk harrow and then a chain harrow. Worked well and now, three years later, I have a 14 acre lawn. I really worked the area with the chain harrow so now its smooth & flat as a pool table.
Saw a field that was top dressed. The top dressing soil was just "different" enough from the native soil to make the grass grow in stripes & patches. Ended up having to redo the entire field and mix all the soil for one even soil type.

Great input oosik! "Flat as a pool table", eh?! That's great!!

 

[jseebold]

get a mower for the 9n, mow with it no the Garden tractor, after or during the building process of your house, work the surrounding ground you want to be a lawn up with a disc or tiller the remainder fence for pasture and mow with the ford.

Your situation is none too different than mine way back in 1995..... I made 2 acres a lawn which I know mow with a zero turn to the rest is pasture grass mown with the Kubota

Thanks a lot for you thoughts!

 

[El Wood]

I'm in the same boat. I have about 7 acres of old farm land land I'm building on. I plan on planting about 7 acres of grass. I also have deep ruts in the soil from years of farming. My plan is to disk the soil and then use a chain harrow for final smoothing and covering of seed.

Later today I will be picking up a soil testing kit. Based on the results I'll use that type of grass that is recommended.

 

[jeff9366]

Thank you very much Corl and Jeff! It looks like the general consensus is disc first, chain harrow next, and then seed.

Be sure to acquire a Disc Harrow with 20" diameter pans. I would recommend 22" diameter pans but I doubt gearing on the 9N would let you pull it fast enough to be optimally effective.

 

[jeff9366]

What is a landplane?

LAND PLANE LINKS:

https://www.google.com/search?clien...Plane+site:tractorbynet.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Frontier Ag & Turf - Frontier Land Plane Demonstration - YouTube

 

[grsthegreat]

Man, nice looking place. But i agree on one thing. youll hate having to mow all them acres every week. It sure gets old.

Personally, if it were me id spend the $$ fencing it off and just smooth out a nice area for house, shop and play area. Get goats or ??? to maintain the rest automatically (once you live there).

I used to mow the 10 acre area out front of my place to keep weeds down, etc. man that got old. Going round and round in circles. Years ago i fenced it off and throw the horses out there.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Since it was a soy bean field it had been worked previously. Get a local farmer to plow and disk it and start over. You can drag a chain harrow over it then and have a very fine smooth surface to grow grass. It may seed itself and if not plant seed in the early fall as that is the best time for grass seed planting. It will be cheaper and faster than hauling topsoil to fill in the rough spots and will give you a superior result from day 1.

I agree with Corl. Since it already was a crop field, you don't need to bring in any topsoil. Just break the ground up (if you till it, it will move easily and you can use a box blade on it), re-plane it, seed it, roll it, and stand back. Tilling it would destroy most of the root systems, requiring you reseed it.

You could plow and disc it. I don't think just disking it would level it very well though.

 

[Degolyerent]

A disc harrow is what is needed for sure, if you have low areas or dips use a box blade to even it up and then use drag harrow to smooth it out.

 

[El Wood]

Could you disc and then use this from Tractor Supply to smooth everything out??




After the seed is down, could you flip this over and go over the seed again to get it in the ground?

 

[NoSoMo]

Do you have any haying neighbors? Wouldn't hurt to leave it a pasture and plant some bermuda / orchard grass once you get it smoothed out. Just have a neighbor farmer cut and bale it for half of the yield and sell the rest on craigslist. Probably get 2 cuts / season where you're at. Also would make a great place for wildlife to be found and harvested during the appropriate season. Not practical if someone has to drive more than a few minutes to get to you. Just a thought. If you plan to do a garden, get a tiller and till it then hit it with a landscape rake a few times followed by a piece of chain-link fence with a couple used tires on it drug behind the tractor. Else, find the attachments you will use on CL and turn around and sell them once the work is complete.

 

[jenkinsph]

Thanks for your excellent ideas Jenkinsph! Your property is AWESOME!! Where are you located? What type of grass did you use? What is a landplane?

Thanks for the kind words, I live in Ruidoso New Mexico at about 7000 ft elevation. I have Tall Fescue that is green about 9 months of the year. Here are some pictures of the landplanes and harrow I built to smooth out the erosion ditches and stump holes. Both are 8' wide and cost about $1150 to build both tools. The last three pictures are of customer projects that the landplane was used to smooth out.

 

[jeff9366]

JENKINSPH: Beautiful Hacienda, beautiful land.

 

[jenkinsph]

Thanks Jeff,
I enjoy this type of work. It helps to be able to see the result of my work at the end of the day. Having been in the plumbing and mechanical business for 30 years it is a nice change. When working on plumbing no one ever says "look how pretty those pipes are". I may not make as much money now but I enjoy my work immensely.


resallen and CalG,
Hope both of you can find something that makes you happy.