Reclaiming old cut over land

also, what do i follow up a dozer with to smooth and bed soil for no-till fescue/clover seed? someone mentioned a box/blade scraper with shanks.

Thanks for the help.

Boy that can be a lot of work, 80 acres.

By cut over, I'm guessing there are logs in the mix and tops. Hard on the equipment.

I would go with the clear around the edge and fence it in with a good fence. Next would look at what type of plants are there, from trees to weeds. If I would put live stock on it . Goats love tree and some weeds. Cows need grass and may be aloud to eat a few tree ( type and amout you need to check), but you may need to feed hay or grain or both. Pigs, better have a supper good fence and feed them to come to you if they would get out, but they would be the best , smart and would not, in most cases eat any thing that would kill them. The roots would be loosened and the weed knot down, ground tilled. You may find a way for them to plant small areas for you. Fence in a area a strip of ground and let them have at if and at the end of them turning it up side down , lime some and broadcast some seed and see what happens. Maybe use some mulch hay, may seed it for you.

A moldboard plow, not a good idea, spend most of your time cleaning it out a make a big mess of plowing, break a moldboard etc.

I would not use a harrow, if there is any thing that can get stuck in it. You will spent all your time cleaning out the harrow.

Rubber tires , if any one was cutting trees. The stumps from the 3/4" - 1" if cut wrong go right though the back tractor tires.

Good luck !!

Punchie

Sewerage plants for example. They have been used in Carlisle & Concord MA the last two years on conservation properties and I think in the National Park in Concord.

Have the original cutover stumps decayed?

That's a dang good choice for cattle by using clover and fescue but I've tried planting it both ways and did'nt see any advantage to using no-til methods.

Around here we use tractors for doing that kind of ground work. An offset gang disc will take out 2" saplings and also smooth the ground if you put a drag behind it to fill in the rough spots.

The going rate is $10 per acre around here for bigger tractors with new ground disc.

For the balance I plan on using my backhoe with a root rake on the front end. Cheaper for me since I own backhoe and had to pay for dozer work. Planning to follow root raking with 10' IHC #37 disk harrow. Some of the less grown up areas (25 acres) I have bushhogged and this weekend I will be using disk plow to plow the ground then disk again.

Be prepared for lots of hard work!

A 'disk plow' might work for you, but sounds like still tough on tires to me.

Herbicides will kill a lot, but you still have the woody mess on the ground, didn't really accomplish anything...

An option is to fence it & get livestock on it, they help take down a lot of green stuff, get the process rolling. I hear goats clean things up the quickest, if you have a mind for such creatures. Then you can at least see what you can bush-hog & what you can't, rocks & such...

I do not understand the concept of 'no-till planting' when you talk about following a dozer. you have done some _major_ tillage there, what's up with trying to go no-till at that point? :) Just kiddin' with you, struck me an different. :)

--->Paul