How too fix my lawn.

[yelbike]

When I first moved here I used to cut the 3' tall lawn/weeds with a 72" farm king finish mower pulled behind a 63' Fordson Super Major with Ag tires. Well it left ruts behind. The Fordson is now gone but even 3 years later the ruts haven't.
How do I get rid of them. I first thought the ruts would go away with time as they are not that deep. Didn't happen. I was thinking either fill with top soil but I think it may take forever as the rough area is about an acre and a half.
I was also thinking of getting a large roller and drag over the lawn when its wet/soft in the spring.

Does anyone have better ideas?

Thanks ahead of time!!

 

[Diamondpilot]

I am surprised your lawn rutted. I have mowed for years with a Ford 861 and ags and now a 28HP Jinma 4x4 with Ags. Both tractors weigh 5,500# with me on them and my lawn is perfect.

Rolling will work but it takes a real roller. I made one that is 24" in diameter and 7' wide filled with concrete, about 3,000#, and it will not help much on the lawns I have worked on. Best thing to do is skim the dips with top soil or hire a large roller like used to roll asphalt. We use one of them to maintain the grass runway at the airport.

Chris

 

[Craig Clayton]

As a fellow Canadian we have the advantage of winter, and I am surprised that the frost has not evened out the the ruts.
I watched a This Old House show about the ruts left in the lawn from a truck on a house lawn. The experts said the ruts needed to be rototilled out as the soil had been compressed by the tires. If you filled with top dressing the compressed soil is still down there.
As your area is larger I do not think more compressing ie ROLLING is a good idea.
When I bought my property it had been freshly plowed and I was not able to grade it out in the fields. Many of the furrows are gone but the imprints are still there after 20 years.
Some form of disking to break up the soil should do the trick.

Craig Clayton

 

[psdx]

How deep are the ruts? Also, the roller works best when the ground is pretty damp.

 

[yelbike]

As I was finish my post I was thinking the ruts didn't come from the ag tires but probably from the front tires which were old truck tires ( p rated type). The tractor is listed a tractordata as 5500lbs plus the loader (another 1000lbs). I might tiller the ruts out someday but I'm trying to move forward my my yard right now not backwards:laughing:. Too many project on the go right now.

 

[yelbike]

How deep are the ruts? Also, the roller works best when the ground is pretty damp.

At worst 4" maybe less. Enough to make you sick trying to mow at full speed with either tractor. The worst part is spilling the beer. :drink: Its also hard to play ball with the kids.

 

[NormL]

At worst 4" maybe less. Enough to make you sick trying to mow at full speed with either tractor. The worst part is spilling the beer. :drink: Its also hard to play ball with the kids.

I have the same problem over here near Starbuck. Our yard is bowl shaped and on wet years like we've had with the exception of last year, the yard has not dried up enough to support the weight of either my Ford or Oliver. Just like your ruts, mine come from the front tires bearing the weight of the FELs. I'll be watching this thread with great interest because if you gain a solution for your problem I may have one for mine. In my case, I suspect the soil type is a major factor. We have what is known as Osbourne Clay. Don't ask me how that differs from other clay.:confused2: I just know it is challenging to deal with and when wet, sticks like iron filings to a rare earth magnet and will not let go!:laughing:

Because I have so many low areas to level, I had some 3000 cubic yards of drift soil hauled in from a neighbouring field after the municipal people had done drainage management. Come Spring and the conditions permit, I will be using some of this to spread over the ruts as well as fill low areas to encourage drainage. Disking and harrowing until the soil is even and somewhat compacted is probably how I will go about it once the drift soil is spread. Since you are on the East side of the Red River from me, you are likely dealing with a different soil type. Do you have ready access to earth to fill your ruts? What about equipment for leveling? I hope to get a drag built to even out the gravel driveway and yard. I can see that being useful as a finisher after harrowing the parts of the yard that I have worked up.

 

[Smallplot]

If you fill in the ruts with topsoil you have to overfill them so as they settle they will not sink too far.

Another option would be to use a box blade with good teeth. and finish with a heavy roller

 

[psdx]

Not the same exact thing but my last house had a lot of dirt settling over the drain tile runs. For a long time I tried to fix this without tearing things up. And I always made sure to mow in the same direction as these ruts, never perpendicular. I finally gave up and dropped topsoil in the ruts and threw out some grass seed.

 

[yelbike]

Not the same exact thing but my last house had a lot of dirt settling over the drain tile runs. For a long time I tried to fix this without tearing things up. And I always made sure to mow in the same direction as these ruts, never perpendicular. I finally gave up and dropped topsoil in the ruts and threw out some grass seed.

I tried mowing perpendicular with jd 2305 turfs to "cut" or break the ruts. Didn't work. Now its just like a wash board.

 

[yelbike]

I have the same problem over here near Starbuck. Our yard is bowl shaped and on wet years like we've had with the exception of last year, the yard has not dried up enough to support the weight of either my Ford or Oliver. Just like your ruts, mine come from the front tires bearing the weight of the FELs. I'll be watching this thread with great interest because if you gain a solution for your problem I may have one for mine. In my case, I suspect the soil type is a major factor. We have what is known as Osbourne Clay. Don't ask me how that differs from other clay.:confused2: I just know it is challenging to deal with and when wet, sticks like iron filings to a rare earth magnet and will not let go!:laughing:

Because I have so many low areas to level, I had some 3000 cubic yards of drift soil hauled in from a neighbouring field after the municipal people had done drainage management. Come Spring and the conditions permit, I will be using some of this to spread over the ruts as well as fill low areas to encourage drainage. Disking and harrowing until the soil is even and somewhat compacted is probably how I will go about it once the drift soil is spread. Since you are on the East side of the Red River from me, you are likely dealing with a different soil type. Do you have ready access to earth to fill your ruts? What about equipment for leveling? I hope to get a drag built to even out the gravel driveway and yard. I can see that being useful as a finisher after harrowing the parts of the yard that I have worked up.

For leveling I have a couple of back blades nd different sizes of box blades. I have a tiller but I don't really want to till it all and start from scratch. I think filling with soil stolen from the tree lines is going to be my fix.

 

[RoyJackson]

I'm following this thread with great interest.
We had a well drilled last week and the rig left some pretty deep ruts. The ground was soft due to the snow and rain we'd had in the week before).
The first try resulted in the Deere 4400 sinking in as well. I had to use the bucket curl to push me out. I could get the ruts closest to the parking area (hard packed gravel) so I'd have some traction (turf tire and 4 link ladder chains). This was using the loader to move the mud and back dragging to fill. It worked OK.
The following day (after a below freezing night), could could run on the area and got the remainder of the ruts. Once I broke through the frozen crust...well, that was about all I could do.
My plan, once the area is a it drier, is to use a roller to pack the mounded dirt down. Doesn't look near as bad as it did originally...but it is a work in progress.

 

[rjmack]

i'm going to build one of these, (but with 4" spikes) partly to decompact areas of my lawn where the grass is having a hard time penetrating compacted soil, partly to smooth things out, which i'm hoping it will do.

i don't really have a lot of ruts, but the thinking is that the spikes will push the edges of whatever ruts i have/create, inwards.

it would definitely have to be done with damp ground, but with repeated uses... maybe the ruts will be filled from the surrounding soil?

Tractor 3 Point Hitch Water Fillable Aerator, Spiker

 

[NormL]

i'm going to build one of these, (but with 4" spikes) partly to decompact areas of my lawn where the grass is having a hard time penetrating compacted soil, partly to smooth things out, which i'm hoping it will do.

i don't really have a lot of ruts, but the thinking is that the spikes will push the edges of whatever ruts i have/create, inwards.

it would definitely have to be done with damp ground, but with repeated uses... maybe the ruts will be filled from the surrounding soil?

The ruts at my place do not seem to have a ridge on each side. So for me to try using a roller is pointless. I don't know if that is an unique function of the clay soil or not. My ruts were formed as I mowed and baled the hay. Of course the hay was unfit for feed but I was using it as cover for frost protection.

 

[super55]

I did landscape for ten years and we always had this issue when doing work especially around lake lots. The best bet and easiest by far is to fill with topsoil route. Rollers will work but the land has to be literally saturated and usually the implement you have to use to pull it only creates more ruts.


Go with the topsoil topped with cool season fescue and you should be good to go.

 

[donn12]

A plug aerator with a lot of weight on it will do a great job. Wait until the ground is a little soggy. If this doesn't work you may have to use a box blade and mess up the grass.

 

[reggiejr]

How about renting a 3pt tiller for your tractor and tilling the entire area and then regrade and reseed it to make a brand new blemish free lawn area.

Not sure how picky you are but Ive filled ruts like that before with more loam and reseeded them and the ruts always seem to show up in the grass later on
and can make for an eye sore but if its a back field then hey what the heck.

To me the only repair for me would be a full redo.:thumbsup::2cents:

 

[yelbike]

The ruts at my place do not seem to have a ridge on each side. So for me to try using a roller is pointless. I don't know if that is an unique function of the clay soil or not. My ruts were formed as I mowed and baled the hay. Of course the hay was unfit for feed but I was using it as cover for frost protection.

My ruts don't have ridges either. At first when the ruts were more noticeable I would try and run over the edges with the tires. Now its just all bumpy.

 

[yelbike]

I did landscape for ten years and we always had this issue when doing work especially around lake lots. The best bet and easiest by far is to fill with topsoil route. Rollers will work but the land has to be literally saturated and usually the implement you have to use to pull it only creates more ruts.


Go with the topsoil topped with cool season fescue and you should be good to go.

What's "cool season fescue"?

I was thinking the same thing about the tractor trying to pull a loaded roller and making new ruts.

 

[NICKB304]

I go through this every year from putting all our critters in our smaller pasture with barn access for the winter. It takes them about 2 weeks to have it beat down to a rutted up mud pit. As soon as it is dry enough they go into their bigger pens and I get started on fixing that one.

The first year we had a friend with a sub compact John Deere and 4ft tiller come out to till it for us (took most of a day). Then I pulled around a makeshift land plane I made from old rail road ties with my lawn tractor to level it out the best I could. Then followed up with the small roller I had to pack it down. I did not seed. The grass popped back up in three weeks and after one mowing to get everything even it looked better than my lawn and was nice and smooth.

I repeated the process the next year with a borrowed Kubota compact and 5ft tiller and rear blade instead of my makeshift land plane. While I had the Kubota at my house I stole my dad's roller which is 7ft wide 24" OD filled solid with concrete. This made the results even better and only took a half day. Grass recovered in the same amount of time with no seeding.

This year its game on now that I started my "real job" and have the money to throw at projects I have been putting off. I plan on reworking the whole yard now that I have my own toys to do it with. I picked up a ct28 McCormick 4x4 with fel at the end of last summer and have been picking up the implements as I come across them. I picked up a 72" tiller for it and plan on getting a real three point land plane by spring. My thinking is I can use some chains to drag the land plane behind the tiller to kill two birds with one stone. I also made a rack on the roller to put two big concrete blocks I plan on making on top of it to really compact things for the yard. I think I will actually re-seed the yard unlike the pasture. I may even bring in some dirt from the back 40 to fill in some low spots before I start the process.
I will let you know how it turns out in a couple months.