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Smoothing a field

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Rob
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2000-06-21          17366

Greetings helpful board members! My wife and I are close to closing on our long awaited rural property (my justification for getting a tractor!). A good bit of our 10 acres is previous farmland and still has furrows 6-8 inches deep (or high?). I want to smooth the land and plant some native grasses while we prepare to build. As I see it, my options are to pay a local farmer (effective but not much fun) or attempt it myself as a first project with my yet to be purchased tractor (probably a 790). Questions are: Is it reasonable to attempt this myself? What is the best method (Round-UP?, disc?, drag?, how big?, etc?). The soil is sandy and light, vegetation is mostly a grass like plant planted in rows with associated low weeds. I suspect it's tall fescue for erosion control, but could be wheat or rye. Land is basically flat. I'd just leave it alone, but the furrows make it tough to get around and we do eventually want to keep some of it cut. Thanks ahead of time for any and all suggestions. Rob

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Chris
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2000-06-21          17367

Rob,
I've got the same type of situation, except mine is only 5 acres. I suppose a lot of it depends on the amount of time you have to spend on it. I bought a cultivator and drag for my TC25D which seems to work sufficiently to smooth things out, but takes considerably longer than it would for a farmer with much larger machinery. ....

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Doug
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2000-06-21          17376

Rob,
I also have the same situation but with approx 20 acres that I just bought last year. A farmer offered to plow and plant corn in these fields but said he would have to use herbicides and that just wasn't something that appealed to me. I bought a 6' disc harrow with 20 16" discs and am in the process of smoothing these fields now. I disc them several times to level the furrows and to break up hte clumps of vegetation and then I tried using my 7' rearblade facing backward but pulling it forward and that worked OK but someone mentioned the idea of dragging a utility pole behind the tractor. I did happen to have an old pole on my property so I attached large eye hooks at either end of the pole which is aabout 10' long and that seems to be working pretty good and alot faster.
I will be interested to see what other ideas people have. BTW, I am doing this with a Kubota L-3010 HST ....

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droz
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2000-06-22          17395

Definitely get it as level as you can. I made the mistake (not knowing ahead of time that it was so) of leaving a small section where the farmer next door had plowed and just planting trees and grasses. Now everytime I cut it, I have to go 1-2 MPH and enjoy the bumping. I assumed it might level itself off. Maybe in 10 years. ....

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lsheaffer
Join Date: Jun 1999
Posts: 1082 Northern Illinois
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2000-06-22          17401

As a farmer, my recommendation would be to use a disk & drag harrow. If you're tractor has enough power pull the drag behind the disk. If you don't mind the grass coming back after you level it, you wouldn't gain anything by spraying it. If the grass is tall, mowing it first may be helpful. ....

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BCalvin
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2002-01-19          34689

I agree with the last solution using a large off-set would be the best followed by a telephone pole or spring tooth harrow....however, are you sure we are not talking about teraces that the prior farmer put in???? ....

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MarkS
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2002-01-23          34870

what about a pulverizer (http://www.woodsonline.com/)? I've never used one but it looks as though it would do a good job leveling out semi rough ground. They are basically just I beams turned on edge with several hardend tines that break the surface of the soil. Most also have one or two roller aerator wheels that follow to help level and aerate the soil. I don't think it would dig in deep enough to remove the bumps from a recently plowed field though, not in one pass anyway. ....

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timmyt
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2002-01-24          34883

If you use a disc get a heavy one not the toy ones TSC sells. The Hardee Williams line is one of the better ones in the size range you would need for a JD790. If you buy a cheap light one it won't level things at all. ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2002-01-24          34884

I guess my question is how rough is it? I guess here the soil has a lot of clay and I need to wait to the right time to disk and harrow. The flex harrow works quite well on sandy soil and you get it smooth enough, but you might need to run the field a number of times. After you have the field planted you can use the flec harrow to dethatch and scarify the field to improve grass growth. There are 2 types sold you need to get the heavier one. ....

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JMALLOY
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 3 CUMMING, IOWA
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2002-01-26          34942

If it were me, I would hire a farmer to disk and harrow it. However, if you want to do it yourself, you might consider a rear mount tiller. I helped a neighbor last spring who had rented two acres of cornfield to plant sweetcorn. We used a 48" Landpride rear mount tiller on his JD 455 and it did a great job of cutting up the corn stalks, and leveling the ground. Had to go over it twice, and it took few hours, but did a great job.

J. Malloy
Iowa

....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2002-01-26          34944

I thought about the 3pt tiller also but was not sure what you wanted to spend. I have found the gray market tillers has as low as $200 but a new NA tiller is 1000-2000 dollars. I guess the question is will you use it afterward? ....

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