Newbie - Need Help Fixing Massive Cracks in Horse Pasture

[ChisholmRanch]

Hi everyone. I'm a newbie here in all senses. This is my first post, and I am about to be a new tractor owner. I'm enjoying reading through the threads but I haven't found specific advice concerning my largest issue right now, so I thought I would post my own thread.

I live in TX and have awful clay gumbo soil. We have 20 acres of large pastures for our horses. This year we had huge amounts of rain followed by nothing but 100 degree heat. This is my first year on this property, and in a matter of days, from when we first saw small cracks, the ground started splitting in spots. We have irrigated the pastures, and along the irrigation pipe ditches there were cracks we knew to be watching and monitoring, filling and compacting. However, EVERYWHERE else through the pastures the soil also has cracked.

Two weeks ago, under some heavy grasses, there were cracks 5 inches wide and a foot or so deep. One of our horses got a hoof caught and broke a leg. He has had surgery and is maybe going to make it, but it has been an overwhelming experience for all of us.

I;ve been paying contractors to come in and cut the pastures as needed while we settled into our patterns and decided the tractor and attachments we needed for our farm. With this latest situation, I have ground work we need to be doing and we will be buying the tractor in the next week or so. I've decided on John Deere because of the friendliness and help of the local dealer.

I'm looking for advice from all of those more experienced with me on what in the heck I should be planning on to maintain my pastures so that this never happens again. Obviously we will stay on top of the irrigation needs of the ground and not just the grass, but that seems quite wasteful to me to keep the ground watered more than the grass needs. Rather than do that to excess, I would like to work the ground with the tractor and hopefully conserve such an important resource. I've also received advice to completely disc under the entire pastures and replant replacing our native grasses with a hybrid bermuda that may hold the ground together better.

I am completely lost here as to what to do. Ideally, I would like to create pastures that we do not have to work heavily year in and year out. Does anyone have any advice for us where we are right now? My current plan is to disc over the largest cracks and try and keep areas of grasses for grazing. We'll select our LEAST cracked pasture and only turn out there while we completely re-establish the others. I'm hoping I can get 10 acres or so disced and done and prepared for us to plant a hybrid bermuda to still get established before the fall, but am I likely not going to make it?

Does anyone have opinions on if I disc the entire pasture and reseed, will I have hopes of avoiding these types of cracking issues again, or am I going to be discing every year? And if so, does that mean I will be losing all my grasses, having to close down pastures for months at a time following discing to then allow grass to grow before turning horses out?

I know this post is a little scattered, but I'm hoping there are some more experienced folks that spur a discussion here so I can be as prepared to handle this as I can be.

 

[jeff9366]

We have no clay in Florida but based on my experience:

You need to disturb the soil profile to the bottom of the cracks to prevent reoccurrence. If you just fill the cracks I believe the fill soil will wash out before too long.

Use a Chisel Plow first, a type of conservation plow which will penetrate 10", then Disc Harrow if necessary to reduce furrows. Chisel Plow will preserve some of the grass you have.

Seed with what seems best. To me, grass diversity would be insurance. I can believe modern hybrid pasture grass would be more productive with regular fertilization but it would take some convincing for me to believe anything would outsurvive prairie grass truly native to your area.

HAVE YOUR SOIL TESTED AND AMEND BEFORE SEEDING.

Chisel Plows are common in Texas. Photos #1 + #2

Chisiel Plows generally require north of 60-hp tractors + 4-WD to pull them.

Disc Harrows most commonly discussed here, those with 18" to 22" diameter pans, penetrate a maximum of 6" (18") and 8" (22"). Most pasture grasses go down 7" to 9", so, usually, a Disc Harrow will not kill all pasture grass used occasionally, at least in Florida. Certainly, grass revivification will be partially dependent on rainfall.

If you Disc Harrow with 24" - 26" - 30" diameter pans, penetration will be deeper and most existing grass will be killed.

If you are determined to kill all existing grass, spray with Roundup/Glycophosphate.

A Field Cultivator, a sort of light Chisel Plow, is good for biannual or tri-annual pasture aeration, as are a number of other implements called Pasture Aerators. "Hay King" (Photo #3), made in Texas, is probably the best known, but pricey.

Folks generally aerate pastures when animals have so packed the soil that there is standing water after rain.

I hope it is not pressure from underground petroleum that is causing your cracks.


LINKS (3): http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/308251-disc-harrow-selection-18-45-a.html?highlight=

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/339095-dirt-dog-all-purpose-plow.html?highlight=

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/332493-tandem-lift-disc-harow-monroe.html?highlight=

 

[texas42]

What you are experiencing with the cracks in the soil is common in certain areas of Texas with heavy clay soil. The cracks can run several feet deep.
The cracks are the result of the clay drying out and shrinking.
The best way to combat this is irrigation. That's why many people water the foundations of their houses so the clay doesn't shrink and crack their foundation.

 

[Gem99ultra]

I'm sure familiar with the clay ground around Magnolia cracking. Sorry about your horse falling into one and getting injured.

IF it were me, I'd disc it up real good, perhaps with a 20 inch disc. Then after breaking it up into small clods, I use a drag chain harrow on it. That would pull the dirt into the cracks. Run the harrow with the prong side down first, then flip it over to the smooth side. Then, if you really want to polish it up, I'd get a land plane for smoothing and leveling. Any tractor above a 30 hp should do the work. The bigger the better, of course. The grass is going to come back, and PDQ at that. Irrigation if possible will ensure greenery with a couple of weeks.

I think the above would be the cheapest and quickest way to make the land useable. Others hopefully will offer other alternatives.

 

[jenkinsph]

Your best bet is to irrigate the land deep each time your turn comes up assuming you are on a ditch or pipeline. I would also recommend you contact NRCS to see what help they can give you. NRCS provides assistance with irrigation systems and will provide funding for improvements that conserve natural resources. I do quite a lot of work in my locale installing pipelines, diversion boxes and laser leveling fields. They also provide assistance with pivot irrigation sprinklers too. NRCS pays about 80 to 90% of these costs to the landowner.

Amendments to the soil can make a huge difference but this will take quite some time to achieve. Building up top soil with more organic matter or green manure will help. You can accomplish this by fertilizing and growing crops that are safe for horses and mowing the taller excess down. Sorghum or Sudex would be ideal for building up the organic matter but is not safe for horses. So find something that is safe for horses that will provide lots of vegetation if fertilized and watered frequently. I agree with Jeff to get a comprehensive soil analysis to see what needs to be corrected. I use the Univ. of Nebraska for this and get a good test for about $50 with shipping included.

Considering the large cracks in your soil you may be better off with more frequent tilling and seeding of annuals. Tiling in the green manure from the excess crops each year while you build up the top soil layer. A 50 to 80 hp tractor with a matched disc of 22" blades is what I would suggest. I don't think you need to till any deeper than is needed for your specific crop, if you have cracks all over the pastures it is already fractured enough. I would only subsoil the pastures if I had ponding that doesn't recede quickly after the rains. Ponding can kill off the grasses so it should be avoided. I spend a lot of my time grading fields to facilitate proper watering and drainage this eliminates ponding for the most part.

 

[Wagtail]

All very good advice above.

As you're (perhaps) still deciding on your tractor size you might consider contracting the heavy work out. That will leave you in the market for a 'property maintenance' size (40+hp) and eliminate purchasing implements that will sit there except for the odd time required.

My recommendations are for after you've prepared and seeded the soil... with horses you'll need to roll (compact) in order for the roots to firmly establish. If not, once you've re-introduced the horses to that paddock, they'll tend to rip the entire young plant out. You can also get (or hire) a roller with aerating spikes.

I find that a chain harrow is my most used 'rear' implement for busting up & spreading the horse droppings in place. I don't collect the manure (as other 'equine' owners do) but use it to fertilise and, if you're rotating paddocks, the result in the last 2 years (for me) has been rich, black soil. I also mulch the spread manure with my lawn tractor IOT break up the balls even further.

Best of luck, Mate, and welcome to TBN from Downunder.

 

[Fawken]

Obviously we need rain. It takes years of tilling in mulch to get the clay soil here crack resistant. And even then we still have to irrigate. Fill the cracks with stall cleanings as best you can.

 

[WM75Guy]

We are fortunate to have sandy soil but we still have issues. After all the spring rain there were lots of sunken spots in the pastures, like small sinkholes. Took a while to get them all filled in. What little clay area I have gets tilled up with my 6' tiller after spreading manure and shavings over it. It helps it from having ruts but some still occur.

 

[joeu235]

I have many acres of heavy clay soil. It sounds to me like your soil is missing organic matter. You can work the soil all you want to but its going to revert back to a solid mass if there isn't much organic. The solid mass will then crack when it shrinks.

Irrigation is an option but it will take a lot of water, and energy.

I think your best option would be to put the horses somewhere else during the months of July and August if we have dry summers.

 

[jenkinsph]

I have many acres of heavy clay soil. It sounds to me like your soil is missing organic matter. You can work the soil all you want to but its going to revert back to a solid mass if there isn't much organic. The solid mass will then crack when it shrinks.

Irrigation is an option but it will take a lot of water, and energy.

I think your best option would be to put the horses somewhere else during the months of July and August if we have dry summers.

I agree it might be better to put the horses in a small area that he can keep smoothed out. It does take quite a bit of time to improve the organics in the soil, many years. I have never understood the people who haul away hay from their farms, they are depleting their organics. Much better to haul hay and other things such as wood chips, pine needles, hay, grass clippings and even weeds in to break down.