Plastic Bed Mulch

Bought the place next door. Guy was into organic farming for a while, he had a transplanter that also laid down a strip of black plastic to keep the weeds down. Each year he would use a PTO tiller to prepare for raised beds, which also chopped up last year's plastic. So now I have all these raised beds that have been dormant for several years, with half buried plastic everywhere. Does this stuff bid-degrade? If so, how long does it take? I'm going to disk the beds up and level everything out for a hay field, but I sure don't want pieces of plastic in the hay. Is there anything I can do other than just keep picking up pieces of plastic?
 
I know this sounds goofy , but a potato digger would get under and bring the plastic up and lay it on top of the ground Maybe !!
I know weird huh ? might work and then maybe not , good luck getting it out
Wayne
 
I would be a little leery of the potato digger option. Might work until some plastic gets caught up in the chain, idlers or sprockets. Then you'll be pulling it all apart to clear it. Even a little plastic bag can make a pain-in-the-neck mess if the machine hasn't been apart in a while, which is usually the case.

Not that I have any better ideas, though ????

Perhaps just plow it out? My guess is you'll be picking up plastic for a few years no matter what.
 
Sounds like this guy was a total A*** H******. All of the truck farms around me have their south of the border crews go out and clean up everything each fall. Couple of big piles of plastuc sheet and seasonal irigation hose that they dispose of. Thing i would try is a spring tooth harrow. Go ten or twenty feet and raise her up. Clean the tines and repeat. Is going to take a lot of work but you should be able to remove most of it. Other answer is the flat earth solution. Get below the plastic level. What a jerk!!
 
(quoted from post at 05:09:54 04/24/17) Bought the place next door. Guy was into organic farming for a while, he had a transplanter that also laid down a strip of black plastic to keep the weeds down. Each year he would use a PTO tiller to prepare for raised beds, which also chopped up last year's plastic. So now I have all these raised beds that have been dormant for several years, with half buried plastic everywhere. Does this stuff bid-degrade? If so, how long does it take? I'm going to disk the beds up and level everything out for a hay field, but I sure don't want pieces of plastic in the hay. Is there anything I can do other than just keep picking up pieces of plastic?

It may be the biodegradable plastic...it takes a few years to break down. How long has it been?
 
It's been 3 or 4 years since they last planted a crop. Weeds and grasses have come up , and they had horses pasturing the area later, so the plastic is pretty much in tatters now.
 
(quoted from post at 08:08:20 04/24/17) It's been 3 or 4 years since they last planted a crop. Weeds and grasses have come up , and they had horses pasturing the area later, so the plastic is pretty much in tatters now.

If it is breaking up into fragments it is probably biodegradable...sounds good and made a good point for selling, but it still takes a long time to decompose. He may have even been sold stuff that he was told was biodegradable but wasn't...who knows. I just spread compost for a guy that uses it. He said he was disappointed that it doesn't break down faster. I agree, it is a mess. At least with real plastic it is strong enough that you can pull it up in big pieces!
 
if it's still there after 3 or 4 years, my guess is it is regular plastic mulch, which will still be there in 100 years unless it is picked up.
i have had success lifting intact plastic mulch with a potato digger, but wouldn't consider it for the situation you describe. aside from walking the field with a garbage bag, you could try a rotary hoe or a propane flamer
 
Some biodegradable types break down with exposure to light and air. Bringing it to the surface will help if it's that type. Or, at least it will blow over to the neighbors. :)
 
Jeffcat, I'd have to agree with you. We are supposed to be stewards of the earth, and at least try to take care of what we can. I have a guy near me that decided he was gonna get some cattle, and bagged up a bunch of feed. When he feeds them, he just cuts the extra off the bag andd throws it in a pile, like the wind doesn't blow. It blows all over their fields where they just try to work it under, it's stuck in all of the fencerows around them, theirs and everyone else's included. I'd be real tired of picking their trash out of my trees and field if my property was unfortunate enough to adjoin their's. And that's not the only one I see that does that. Have some respect for your neighbors if you're the problem.
 

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