Clearing ground for pasture

   / Clearing ground for pasture #21  
I think I would disc and then drag with a large section of rail road rail or something fairly wide, heavy, but not overly aggressive in cut; hoping to take the highs into the lows. Grazing pasture doesn't have to be perfect, but the pine windrows need to be leveled out or atleast 'softened'. If we are talking hay field; its all going to have to be smooth, leveled, and rolled.
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture
  • Thread Starter
#22  
I dont know that burying your best soil 6" down with a disk is a bad thing. I would imagine with pines; the soil is pretty acidic also, so lime may be needed. Also, some areas have a heck of a hard pan layer, but probably deeper then will affect grasses; but will affect drainage.

On the no till; I really didn't think they did well with any woody debris, such as roots say 1" or bigger; and the ball roots from palmetto would really clog them up, I would think. Also, I would hate to hook into a 8-12" diameter pine tap root, that has started turning into lighter knot, with a drill.

I heard a description of Fla a few years ago that I had never heard before, but makes a Lot of sense; Florida is a desert where it rains a lot. That is both true figuratively and in reality. Geologically, it was basically attached to the Sahara at one point.

We do have a varied soil. West of I-75, in Alachua County, you'll find chirt rocks the size of a truck; where I am, I'm 120 ft above sea level, on a sand hill; with a 105 ft deep well, that is still in sand, and not a natural rock in 30 miles. Over by the beach, you get a really abrasive shell-sand-clay mix. Hastings, down to Bunnell, where 3 counties grow, from what I've heard, like 30% of USAs potatoes, silty sand with a lot of organics, with a Nasty hard pan layer.

Once in Ocala, open trenching gravity sewer, I think we had clay sand, gumbo, hard rock, soft rock, a false water table, and pretty mortar sand, all within about 200 ft of trench.
IFAS says 2 tons lime per acre. And the about 100lbs acre N and about 50lbs acre P&K. Bulk lime is the only way I'll be able to afford as much as is needed so I'd like the soil opened up so I can disk it lightly after application to make sure it doesn't blow away. I'm in silty sand at about 90 feet above sea level. Doesn't drain real well during wet season so I expect a bunch of hard pan under it..
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture #23  
IFAS says 2 tons lime per acre. And the about 100lbs acre N and about 50lbs acre P&K. Bulk lime is the only way I'll be able to afford as much as is needed so I'd like the soil opened up so I can disk it lightly after application to make sure it doesn't blow away. I'm in silty sand at about 90 feet above sea level. Doesn't drain real well during wet season so I expect a bunch of hard pan under it..
Don't know if it still an option, but at one point, you could buy huge amounts of poor grade lime from water treatment plans, as a by product of softening the water for cheap. I dont 100% know how you spread it, as it's wet 'cake'.
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture #24  
IFAS says 2 tons lime per acre. And the about 100lbs acre N and about 50lbs acre P&K. Bulk lime is the only way I'll be able to afford as much as is needed so I'd like the soil opened up so I can disk it lightly after application to make sure it doesn't blow away. I'm in silty sand at about 90 feet above sea level. Doesn't drain real well during wet season so I expect a bunch of hard pan under it..
It's good to see you got a soil sample. Guessing by your description of soil makeup and recommended amendments I would say your Ph is around 5.8 and organic matter I would presume to be less then 2%.

Do not apply fertilizer until you get your Ph in order. Otherwise you are just wasting money. If your soil isn't around the 6.5-7.0 then most of the NPK you add will just bind to the soil and the plants will never be able to uptake the nutrients. Your current recommendation is calling for 8 50# bags of 24-12-12 an acre for fertilizer.

For you lime amendment. If you have a local quarry or masonry company you can often get the price considerably cheaper then buying pelletized but you will need either a drop spreader or a lime buggy that can be rented to spread it.

A really good site to check out is habitat-talk.com and go to their food plot section. Tons of threads on there with success stories from people with situations similar to yours.
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture #25  
On the plow vs roots issues.

A disc plow cuts through roots where a moldboard plow gets hooked on roots. There are disc plows with two discs.

If you had a much bigger tractor an offset disc might work.

Anyway is work though.
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture #26  

Check this disc-chisel out. Something like this might break the high areas with the discs, and also chisels; helping break shallow hard pan, improving drainage, as well as pulling light roots.
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture #27  
I know this is a bit off the subject, but I couldn't help remembering being the first person to pull a plow through virgin ground, although it did not contain any trees. It was an old home site, that belonged to my Grandfather. The house was small, old and delapidated, so he dozed it and decided to plant wheat, which pretty much covered the area, except for the area surround the house, about 1/2 to an acre.

I was pulling a 3 bottom with an old U M&M; and as I recall, in 2nd gear. When I hit the virgin ground, the plow went up to the beams and it stalled, so I put it down in 1st gear. It strained the old girl, and when I looked back at what I had plowed, the virgin area was very visibly raised above the rest of the plowed ground by about 10 inches! And full of grass roots!
 
   / Clearing ground for pasture
  • Thread Starter
#28  
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