After glyphosate - till or burn

[CADplans]

I would not till or cultivate or burn,, I would mow,, One acre is so small, you could mow with a push mower, if necessary,,,

I have had great success with getting grass seed to germinate in un-tilled soil, with simply a cover of mowed annual weeds.

If the weeds are not enough cover to germinate the seeds, you can add a little straw,
THEN, the grass will come up real nice.

If you can get a planter to use, or have a local farmer plant it for you, all the better.
Do not overly disturb the soil, and do not burn all that great cover left from Roundup spraying.

Just my opinion,,,

 

[Sonny580]

I always burn off noncrop areas --- gets rid of a lot of surface weed seeds. You can mow down the dead stuff but will still have the seeds on top to compete with whatever you plant.

 

[hosspuller]

If you're considering renting equipment... I would rent a no-till planter. Leave the killed residue, it holds the soil and water. Don't till, it opens the weed seed bank for more weeds. I did this to plant a hay field. Round-up then, no-till planter drilled the seed through the dead residue and covered the seed. (for good soil contact) Glad I did, because had torrential rains that would have washed way soil & seed after planting.

 

[thebmrust]

Ok... I have to address the basic grade at some point. It is not perfectly level. There is about 1/4 acre of mounds/hills and ditches left by prior owner when they did 田leanup? aka. Before moving, they took everything around the property they weren稚 taking and burned it. Even if it wasn稚 burnable. Then tried to clean up by pushing it around with a skid steer but still left 1/4 acre of 8-12 inch tall furrows and mounds.

Most of the mounds have wire, nails, wood (building lumber, fencing, tree leftovers) in them. They still have to be sifted so we can get the garbage out. Then leveled or mixed in.

The Rotadairon effectivly tills and levels and removes wheel marks. (search YouTube for examples)

I know disturbing the soil will expose weed seed. I also know that slitting/drilling is most likely the best overall option. The pasture mix is the cover crop... so to speak. It痴 a two year plan to return nutrients to the soil before turf. Thus, I won稚 be putting in a different cover crop so I can plant a pasture mix.

I was most curious as to the benefits of straight tilling (using a Rotadairon vs burning, then using the Rotadairon). As in, will burned weeds put in more nutrients to the ground than non burned weeds. Honestly had not thought about slit/drilling options when I first posted.

Note: Our ground is mostly sand based and level (except for the furrows and garbage laden hills). I would love for the Rota to also seed, but our rental outfit doesn稚 have the seeder box or the optional air seeder.

 

[DJ54]

If it were me, I'd definitely get the trash piles sorted through, and cleaned up. Nails & wire have away to keep coming to the surface. Not good in a pasture where animals are grazing, let alone tractor tires. Once clean, seed with something short lived like oats or buckwheat. I'd keep everything clipped down tight to prevent weeds, and other undesireables from going to seed, and do a Fall planting of your choice with a slit seeder.

Frost seeding works well here, but don't know that your temperatures there get cold enough to do that. Here, it's normally done the last 2 weeks of Feb., to the first 2 weeks of March, when the ground honeycombs, and pulls the seed in, basically mimmicking Mother Nature. I've been using this method for 20 years, and have had good success with it, until this year. We had a mild Winter, but finally got 2 days where it was supposed to drop to 18ｺ, and 10% chance of snow. Here is a picture of the day I seeded. We ended up getting about 2-1/2" of snow, insulating the portion of bare dirt I'd prepped, and it did not freeze well enough to honeycomb. Growth in those 2 area's were poor enough, I disked it up, and reseeded this Spring.

However, where it was seeded in the existing stand of hay, it did very well. I'd clipped it late last Fall down tight after growth had stopped. I wanted to switch the main grass crop to an Endophyte free fescue for horse hay. I also added Blue Grass, Tuukka Timothy, a bit of Red Clover, and a white clover by the name of Renovation Clover at the rate of 1 lb. per acre to boost N producton to feed the other grasses for a few years. Too many years I've broadcast Urea before a supposedly 60%-70% chance of rain, and didn't, so basically lost 40% of it due to evaporation.

The picture of the standing grass/clover is what I got broadcasting into the existing stand, and I'm pleased with it. Fescue was sown at about 12lb. per acre to choke out the Rye Grass, and seems to have worked well. The Red Clover did very well, considering I sowed it @ 2 lbs per acre.

Reading the specs for the Renovation clover, it was recommended to be sown at 2-3 lbs. per acre. The seed dealer warned me to only do 1 lb. per acre, because it can become invasive. If it wasn't enough, I could always sow more next year, as the seed is viable for a few years. Glad I took his advise, as it is as thick as I care to have it.