Chain harrow use on lawn?

[JimS]

After reading a number of posts here I thought a chain harrow would work well on a lawn improvement project. I have a couple acres that we had cut and filled to level and hydroseeded last fall. We were very disappointed with the hydroseeder - despite his talk the coverage was not even. He came back to do minor work but he won't do more. We have had minor erosion over large areas due to the thin coverage so the area is rough. Nothing major but mowing is a bit slower.

I don't really want to start over with seeding so wanted to overseed, aerate, etc to help smooth things. Chain harrow once or twice a year seemed like a good plan (along with other things). I figured it would take a couple years and I am not looking for perfection.

I picked up a chain harrow from tractor supply. In the 'More aggressive" direction the links point slightly backward. In the "less aggressive" direction they point greatly backward. I thought in the more agressive direction they would point slightly forward and dig in. Am I wrong or did I get a bad unit? I am new to this so any suggestions would be welcome.

Would also welcome suggestions for mowers with a smooth ride without busting the bank. Wife would like to help with mowing but has a bad back. Right now we just have a Sears (AYP) riding mower. Have a Kubota tractor but it has ag tires so a little rough on the yard. Might get turf tires but am reluctant to do that as I need the traction for other projects.

Jim

 

[daBear]

Jim, to get replies to this post I would recommend re posting under "attachments".

I have a similar situation caused by erosion and have considered using a spike harrow. However, I used a disk and very lightly disked the ground. Then I used my box blade with the teeth removed and front raised so the rear blade on the box just lightly brushed the top of the ground and smoothed out the rough spots left by the disk. Next I put sand down, re seeded a bit, fertilized and turned on my sprinkler system. Worked fine and other than a $200 water bill for irrigating 2 acres, all is well.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Nope, you got the right unit. More aggressive is slightly backward. Trust me, it's pretty aggressive. We do a lot of overseeding of pastures, it should work fine on a lawn to start with.
Run it over aggressive.
Broadcast the seed.
Turn the harrow over (so it's smooth)
run back over the ground.
Fertilize
done

Pulling it with an ATV works well.

 

[Klorinth]

Jim,

I'm looking at a similar situation and was also thinking about getting a chain harrow. I would love to hear how it goes for you. I'm going to be trying to reclaim an old field full of weeds. I figured that a season of aggressive harrow work followed by fall seeding would be a good way to go.

Please post some follow up info. If you could do a picture of the harrow results that would be really great.

 

[drivadesl]

I pulled the same TSC harrow across my 1 acre of lawn using my IH cub 109. Mainly used it to dethach somewhat and to open up the soil to sun for seeding. It worked well and the cub pulled it no problem, though not something I would do frequently to a 10hp motor. The more you pull it the more it will remove so don't go over board unless thats what youre looking for.