Need Ideas for a drag

[Farmwithjunk]

I always thought you were supposed to seed before you dragged? I guess you could drag smooth, seed and then drag again for seed coverage. Please let me know what the correct method is as I'm about to do this.

There was a recent post about this. Old bed springs were another type of drag commonly used.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/86412-making-drag.html
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You DON'T want "seed coverage". Bad idea. Grass seed wants sunlight to germinate. It needs SOIL CONTACT, but not to be buried. Wheat, barley, ect, (cereal grains) can be buried slightly. Grass just wants to be pressed into the already FIRMED surface. (Grass doesn't do as well in deeply loosened soils) A cultipacker after seeding is the best alternative.

Now to the original question....... A good "drag". SouNdguy put me on to a good idea. Get yourself a "stock panel". (from TSC among other places) Take a bolt cutter to random wires and then bend them down to form spikes. Relatively cheap, works good, and easy to find.

 

[flusher]

Geting ready to till areas of my lawn and then seed. I first need to make a drag to level the dirt before seeding. I've read about using a piece of chian link fence and a couple pieces of pipe. Would appreciate any photo's anyone would care to post to give me ideas.

Thanks

This may be overkill for a lawn, but I have about 7 acres that need to be disked and smoothed.

Got a bunch of free old tires from a guy North of my place. Plan to make a drag out of them.

 

[Redneck_Randy]

Thanks for all the idea everyone.

I ended up making drag out of a chain link gate (4'x4') that I attacked two pieces a of pipe on the top then attaching a small piece of plywood to. I blocked in with 1x2 to hold in place 2 cinder blocks for weight. I was amazed how well it wokred. I pulled it around with my ZTR Dixon because the tractor would have packed the soil down to hard for grass seed. After dragging it level and making sure I didn't change any of my tapers for water drainage I then seeded and drove the ZTR over it one last time to compact the seed into the top of the soil. I then finished off with watering. I'm only doing about 1/2 acres in the front of the home this year. I've never planted seed with much luck in the past but this time I did my research on soil prep and hoping for much better results. I even had my soil tested. Soil was good just needed to be tilled and loosened up and lightly packed in place. I was told after tilling and rolling/compacting you should not have more then 3/8 of a compaction when you walk on it. I'm right at that and maybe a tad less. I recieved most of my info from the local sod farm here. He even took me out to freshly prepped filed ready for seed to look it over.

Again, thanks for all the info everyone!!!

 

[Farmwithjunk]

This may be overkill for a lawn, but I have about 7 acres that need to be disked and smoothed.

Got a bunch of free old tires from a guy North of my place. Plan to make a drag out of them.

Oh great! Now we'll have a 20-page debate on "radials vs. bias ply to level your lawn" post.................

Actually, that's a GREAT way to level ground and beat the life out of clods of dirt. I watched a contractor that builds "sports fields" do a seed bed for a soccer field with a tire drag a while back. It worked to perfection.