major pasture ruts

DD in WA

Member
I have a field I've hayed for the past 20 years. One year many years ago I made the serious mistake of driving on it too early in the spring when it was wet and made some big ruts. I've reached my limit on getting the heck beaten out of me driving over them when I hay every summer. Last summer I tried plowing under a section of it as a test and it was only modestly successful as plowing sod (at least for me) was troublesome so I just pulled a disc over it for what seemed like forever to get it relatively smooth. I'm thinking this time I might spray a portion of it with glyphosphate to kill the grass and then just disc it smooth. Seems with the grass dead it would be much easier/successful to smooth things out. Is this a good approach?? Should I disc it first then try to plow it then disc again?? Appreciate your thoughts.
 
Disk it or use a drag harrow etc. to smooth it out. Any thing that will not cause bigger ruts like a plow will but instead fill In the ruts. Shoot and old bed spring or heavy I-Beam will also work
 
How big a field are we talking here ? If it was 10 acres or less why not just plough the whole field, and work it down and replant . Probably end up with better results for your efforts and a reseeding will no doubt get you better quality hay too.
 
After the third cutting (or?) there should be less material in the surface. I would work it then. Disking deep will loosen the top 3 inches or so. Remember that the material that was displaced by the ruts is still close to the ruts. I would use a plow set to the depth of the disk to follow the ruts putting the turned over material into the rut. Similar to covering a deadfurrow when making "lands" with a "backfurrow in a full field. Then a final spike tooth dragging, or disking should compact and smooth the repair. Jim
 
Think of it this way , you have to loosen the top few inches of soil that holds the ruts, then once the soil is loose, you need to drag something across it that is big enough to Move the Loose soil to fill in the ruts and scrape off the high points . It sounds simple but it doesn?t work that easy. Just remember you Or trying to move the dirt from the high spots to the Low spots and even it all out . There are lots of ways to do this depending on the equipment you have
 
I'm in heavy clay. The axiom that you don't step on an Elephant's foot as it will never forget and return the favor holds true for a rut made in the mud.....the clay never forgets....well sort-a. "Only when ITs ready", a plow and several passes with a disc harrow and spike can change it's mind, for the most part.
 
I sympathise with you since I have a similar problem of rough fields, but my problem is small since I only cultivate about 5 acres divided into three small fields. The fields have not been cultivated in many (perhaps more than 50) years. After spraying one field to kill the vegetation I ploughed it last fall but made a mess of it. The plough would not properly turn over the sod, in large measure due to my ineptness and an improperly set plough. Since then I have disced it a few times and it is still rough, now due to the bad ploughing. I have sprayed the weeds again and in a couple of weeks I am going to plough the field for a second time. This time I will plough it cross ways to the first time. Then I will disc and harrow it until smooth then sow grass seed. Hopefully the grass seed will germinate and survive the winter so that I don't have to go on the field too early next spring and recreate the problem of a rough field. Wish you (and me) luck.
 
If you can chisel plow it without making big dirt clods do that then disk it. If you start to chisel plow it, and it makes big dirt clods stop, and disk it instead. It will take a lot of disking to bust up those clods to get it smooth again. Just plow, and or disk it, don't waste money spraying it. Been there, done that.
 

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