How to make pasture smooth?

JHFV · Feb 25, 2008

my pasture is real bumpy and i hate it! what do i do to make it smooth? i have a heavy duty 8ft chain harrow but it doesnt do the job. do you disk it? till it? somekind of blade? i dont have a clue. my tractor is a 35hp 2wd

Farmwithjunk · Feb 25, 2008

JHFV said:
my pasture is real bumpy and i hate it! what do i do to make it smooth? i have a heavy duty 8ft chain harrow but it doesnt do the job. do you disk it? till it? somekind of blade? i dont have a clue. my tractor is a 35hp 2wd

Millions of ways to deal with that. One would be disc it with that chain harrow behind the disc. Go over it several times if neccisary. Then seed and use a cultipacker.

bigbull338 · Feb 25, 2008

theres only 1 way you can smooth your pasture up.an thats to disk it up.an then harrow it.that will get the clods broke up.

Z-Michigan · Feb 25, 2008

Just keep in mind, if you disc it up and re-seed, it will be a minimum of 2-3 months before it can be used again.... realistically it may take a full 12 months to be in good shape for pasturing (not sure of the rainfall amount or patterns in Ennis, TX). Are the bumps bad enough to justify having it out of commission for a year?

Slacker · Feb 25, 2008

I've had great luck with simply burning the field. The clumps that make my fields bumpy are just dead grass clumps. I'd look into burning the field.

chh · Feb 25, 2008

If you don't mind it taking several years and want to keep it in production the harrow will gradually do it. One of my nieghbors drags all his fields each spring with a approx. 12' piece of railroad iron with a chain harrow behind it. After the second or third year you could start telling a difference. His fields where not extremely rough, but had quite a few bumps, gopher mounds, and armadillo holes in them. I have a hay meadow I'm going to bite the bullet on and completely disc it in and harrow it. I should be able to spare the hay off it this year.

canoetrpr · Feb 25, 2008

I got mine smoothed out with regular harrowing - 3 times a year or so - over 2 years. Keep at the harrowing. Maybe add some weight to the harrow. You could consider using a box blade or a cultivator in the really bad spots.

firemanpat2910 · Feb 25, 2008

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.