How to disc a field?

Nofbdybs

Member
Last year, I purchased a small lot next to mine. Just a hair over an acre.

It was VERY rough. After a few days with our disc, box blade, and chain drag, it smoothed out pretty nice. Was easy mowing with our zero turn this summer.


There are a few spots that could yet use some work. This spring, I plan to hit it again, and get it golf course smooth.





Question: Is there a standard way to make passes? Mostly for efficency.
The lot is 100ft wide, and just over 400ft long.
 
If you can lift the disk, just go back and forth, lifting the disk completly out of the ground when turning. If you can't, work in lands making wide sweeping turns. A disk will leave some nasty dips and humps if you turn short with it in the ground
 
I agree with bob, you probably have figured out to
never go back over it in the same tracks, go at a
angle, rock your box blade back so it doesn't carry
to muck dirt, it is the best leveling tool you have,
you can rock it forward to make the teeth loosen a
little dirt, then rock it back to level. I like to
run my box blade on float and control it with the
top link.
 
I have been doing the same thing with 50 acres. I'm using a Farmall 504 and a MF 10' disk dragging a 12' chunk of rail road iron behind it all. I make a pass in each direction, then come at it on a 45 degree angle. Then I raise the disk (pull type) and drag just the iron to smooth and fill holes. And yes, the poor 504 (42 hp drawbar new) is catching he!!.

I'd like more info on how to do this correctly. I'm just experimenting and trying to figure how to make it "golf course" smooth and keep the +40 year old equipment going.

CT
 
If you keep going over the exact same path many disks will start to leave a ridge. The back gangs will throw dirt to the center of the disk leaving it high while removing the dirt from the outside edges of the rear gang of the disk. So, to help prevent this ridging if you have to keep going back and forth in the same direction, move over 1/2 a disk width. Now you are pulling in dirt from the two ridges left in the previous passes while filling the depression. This ridging really occurs when you have to disk along a fence. Disk along the fence, turn around and over lap the disk 1/2 of the prior swath. Another thing that helps to have the disk leveled properly. A drag can help some as well as not traveling too fast.
 
The area I am working right now is where I am going to build a house/pool/guest house and shop. I am working about 5-6 acres and a cultipacker is on my list of things to buy.

This area will be my front/back/side yards to be mowed with a ZTR mower. I want to make it as smooth as possible while maintaining the rolling hills in the current terrain. The other 45 acres will be mostly pasture with the exception of my food plot and shooting lanes. As long as I can get it smooth enough to drive tractors/equipment/trucks on it I am ok.

While we are talking about discs I have a blade question. My MF 10' disc has 8 blades per gang, 32 total. It has 16 new notched 18" on the front and worn 18" or 20" smooth/solid on the back. I want to replace the rear 16 blades with notched 18". Good idea? This is new ground.

CT
 
I do not know if you live in a colder region of the country. If you do, you should wait until the frost goes out in the Spring and just after the soil has firmed up some, roll the soil with a heavy roller in different directions.
 
That small a field could be smoothed with a four-wheeler pulling a bed-spring upside down if you have enough loose soil to move. It leaves a nice finish and could be used to lightly cover grass seed as well.
 
And once you get it all nice and smooth, moles and winter freezing and thawing come along and messes EVERYTHING up. Also you say you are going to build on this site. The construction is going to tear thing up. I would not worry about smoothing until your construction is done.

Kent
 
I used a moldboard plow and turned it all over. Then disced
lengthwise then the width then at angles till It was pretty good. I
used scraper blade to fill in a couple low spots. The last couple
passes I put an old spike tooth drag harrow behind the disc. I
started with the spikes vertical then to flat. I way over did it but I
was playing with my Farmall Super C.
 
I agree with you, Kent. One you didn't mention was night-crawlers. No matter how smooth you make it now----in 3-4 year's time it'll be as "rough as a cob". I've even gone over the area with a good-sized lawn roller at the proper time, but it doesn't take much time before it's rough again. Just have to live with it, unless you want to spend a lot of time fighting it.
 
A field cultivator with a tine tooth harrow on the rear will leave a smoother bed than any disc- they ridge. Why work a field crossways? It doesn"t level as much as running at an angle, and makes for a rougher ride.
 
Disc it really good and then use a harrow to smooth it out. A box blade would work but you really have to know what you're doing. Pulling a harrow going in all different directions and going in circles will get it smooth enough for you. If you have lots of lumps you could pull a roller over it. Golf courses don't use anything special nor do sod farms. Lots of people will use a levelling plane though. Dave
 
What kind of soil? Where do you live? Here in NW Iowa in our black soil country if you make more than two trips over a field in the spring you are cursed with packed soil for the rest of the year.

Three years ago I worked about an acre of sod in August when we are hot and dry. I plowed it about 5 inches deep, then worked it to death and when I finally put the tractor away it was like moon dust. It was really nice to level but was so soft the tractor (SC Case) left fairly deep wheel track depressions. This was a little higher ground that had soil with a slightly brown tint. I disced twice, harrowed several times, then rolled with an old ancient field roller. When I got done working it that soil was as dry as the desert. Then I broadcast seeded it twice, from two directions, then rolled it twice again. Turned out very smooth but the wheel tracks did show a bit. Got lucky and had good rains and it made me look like a professional landscaper. One neighbor asked me how I got such a good looking job and I told him I just went round and round with the tractor till I got tired of it, then I went the other way and went round and round. Remember, this was in the middle of summer when we were really dry. If I would have done this in the spring I would have ended up with an acre of hard packed parking lot. Jim
 
You'd be wrong about that. I've worked on several golf courses. I have helped build and renovate golf courses. I have a friend that has worked at the same golf course for over 40 years. He started there when he 14 after his father passed away. He has built dozens of new tee's and greens. He uses a skid steer or a box blade and people, including superintendents, have been amazed at the job he does. It's just high end finish grading. There nothing special about it other than years of experience. The same way some skid steer operators can do a really nice job and some can't. After a tee or especially after a green is built, there is specialized equipment to maintain it but nothing really special to build it in the first place. My dad was involved with commercial turf equipment for about 45 years and was good friends with many world class superintendents and was on the board of directors of the turf grass program(to train to become superintendents) at Fairview College, so your thinking I haven't been around golf courses would be wrong. When I was a kid, I'd go around with my dad to a lot of different golf courses and a few sod farms. Dave
 
Most of the above is right advice in some respect or another.

Tuff part is the situation you have, is like all golf courses. No two of them are the same. Hence why every community course is NOT like Augusta National.

When I was part of the crew that built the course that inspired the Senior Tour, I tried hard to learn from the Head Greens-keeper all I could. Tampa Palms went from molded dirt to tournament ready in less than 4 months. Mr. Hills the designer and Mr. Palmer came out to see the status at end of third month and caught my boss playing with the fly-mower. Flinging it like a Frisbee across a very undulating green was impressive to us, just not for those gentlemen. We were bored, what did you expect from a gang of hungover stoners fresh out of high school having to work a Saturday morning after payday. Lot of fun and hard work. Can't tell you how I hated having to fix washouts and re-sprig them suckers. Was my particular gift of being able to cut cup holes and repair the old that saved me from several of my youthful indiscretions.

Growing grass is a little different from what am learning about real farming, with a lot of crossover. Basically smooth grass starts at the foundation (Dirt, dude, Its all about the dirt, boss used to say). They can grow grass on concrete, its how well aerated the dirt is underneath, along with nutrients, that determines how the grass will grow. Hence why golf courses spend oodles of $$ having the fairways and greens plugged. Mix in some nitro w/ a few other goodies into white beach sand and drag harrow it in. Gives the roots a direction to go, along with much needed oxygen for the nodules. Grass will thatch itself almost to death, depending on type grass and your location. Aeration of soil on established grass helps smooth out minor imperfections.

Biggest problem is what is the slope? How is draining? If water puddles up too much after it rains, will drown the roots and stunt growth. Keep a flow going someplace that is more naturally planted that can handle it. Xeriscaping is an art. All parts must work together to keep the lawn extra healthy.

If its only a little off here and there, you need to trick it into raising up in low spots by topdressing it with light sand/dirt combo. Mix a little crushed fine charcoal(not the self lighting kind, go plain generic, it works great) to a sandy gray look to get rapid blade and root expansion. Takes a few weeks to get low spots out, but lets the grass do it for you. Take a shovel full and spin it kind of like baseball swing over general area. Lightly pack it by tamping feet to make top dressing stick. Then very lightly water so as not have the sand mix run off. Low spots will rise easily over time. And a good lawn takes time.

Higher spots can be simply hard raked. Use the tines to loosen dirt. Then flip rake and pull dirt out. Gently work the high spots down. Little at a time. If you wait between every other week mowing to do, will work down easily. Concept here is as the dirt is moved out, the mowing action will encourage the grass down, and with it the dirt level as you remove it. Building it down as you go, so to speak.

Rolling it over with a roller filled with spikes will help it aerate and grow more consistently. Watch the patchiness for areas that are low in nutrients. Mix a little scotts grass feed with above sand mix to help.

If you do go to the extreme of plowing under, then blade it to general shape you want. WATER ROLLER pack it down with half filled roller. Plant your seed ONLY AFTER you have the exact shape you want. Anything else is wasting time and energy. Grass will grow on concrete, so you can grow it on rolled dirt. Don't pack it too tight before seeding. Then just use a push type fertilizer spreader loaded with light sand to top it. Otherwise the seed will just stick to the water roller. Had to redo 2 holes because under pack was too loose and washed out. 125 gallon water roller pushed by hand ain't no fun in the Florida summer heat, let me tell ya. This light sanding is similar to top dressing it, just with seed. Then afterwards do you want to full press it to pack top layers and prevent wash outs. If you have tiered levels or mounds you want to add in, try using plastic edging material running in rings around the mounds. Looks like a topographical map if done right, and prevents rain and watering erosion before grass sets.

Running discs back and forth, whatever pattern you use, will help the aeration principle. It just may not smooth it. Discing it well to loosen it, following with a box blade to shift it around is better. But once gets there, is where the rollers come in handy. Depending on the type grass, chain/drag harrows perform similar function to "spriging". Most lawn type grasses will repopulate itself through sub-roots. Bahia is the most common seen sprayed on sides of roads. Kind of looks like hay shot over area. When spriging grass, run a set of discs in most non aggressive position you can, and just barely pierce the dirt about 2 inches at max. It will help the grass pieces into the slices made by the discs and give a more solid rooting with quicker growth. And hopefully rain only lightly will allow it to set and grow like wildfire.

Getting into St. Augustine's, Bermuda's, other hybrids, and some of the new stuff gets into a field I haven't been in for years. There are ton of choices in grass technology nowadays that was just beginning when I worked on my two golf courses in much younger days. Am sure you can find the type you would like, its out there now.

Hope this helps a bit to point you in direction that works for you. There is a whole internet full out there and this is just some of my limited experience.
 
I don"t understand the fixation on these boards that the wannabees have for a disc. Real farmers rely on a FC for the bulk of field work. Discs pack the ground and leave it ridged.
 
Here is the answer for fine turf finish grading. I have a local friend who is a 20 year Golf Course Superintendent. He specialized as a grow-in super. Built courses for Fazio, Jacobsen, Benz, and Anderson. Had 2 of them nationally rated.
I am not an expert and I didn't magically ABSORB this knowledge by being around him, this is what he said:

First step is shaping, soils are shaped by specialized dozer artists known as shapers. They make sure the water flows and everything is compacted into place (6" of topsoil is stripped off and subsoils are shaped and then topsoil is replaced.

Second step is they use a light weight PULL TYPE boxblade as a land plane to fill in low spots and dozer tracks. Mounted box blades are not used as they dig a new hole when a tractor tire drops into a low spot and leave a high spot when they hit a high spot.

Final step is to loosen and finish grade with a Gill soil pulverizer to a depth of 4". The Gill is the key to a perfect finish and it is worked across the terrain like a paint roller in a W pattern. Baby butt smooth, and uniformly firm (NO Settling) after a skilled Gill operator is finished.

SU184_Pulverizer2.jpg
 
3 pt. hitch box blades are very popular on golf courses. Most of the shaping is done with standard landscaping equipment, nothing special just for golf courses. A gill pulverizer will level minor imperfections but are mostly used to loosen up the top layer of packed soil after the shaping and levelling has already been done. A few inches of loose soil is needed for the grass to germinate. Once the grass grows and is cut will also level slight imperfections out. A green requires the most work of anything on a golf course. As far as the rest of a golf course, it's not too hard to make your yard just as nice and smooth. A golf course is just on a bigger scale. I worked on a golf course that redid a complete fairway with new sod. They had a contractor put grade stakes in and then used a grader to get the level they wanted. Dave
 
(quoted from post at 18:38:31 01/26/11) I don"t understand the fixation on these boards that the wannabees have for a disc. Real farmers rely on a FC for the bulk of field work. Discs pack the ground and leave it ridged.


Wannabee?
Fixation?

:roll:


Probably because im NOT a real farmer, or a farmer of ANY kind, and the tools I have are a Disc, blade, and a chain drag.
I dont have a Field Cultivator,and have no intentions, nor need to purchase one.
 
FWIW, I am in louisiana. I will not be building on the land, my house is connected to it.
Im using our Yanmar 336d, the disc is a small, 5ft unit, but a heavy one, it was able to cut very good last year. Box blade is a standard 5ft unit.

I had a few issues with pocket Gophers last year, but I was able to trap them out real easy. It did have a ton of old roots, I was able to get a few truck loads out. Also, there was some old concrete there, and an old gas line. Before I got the land, timber was there. It was cleared out, and all the stumps removed, but the skidders and dozers made the land VERY rough. I was able to get it more than smooth enough for a ZTR to hit. There are just a few spots that are still not to my favor. Also, the land dips down towards the rear, and over the years, some of the topsoil has washed off. I need to replace that. I would have done it all last year, but my wife, and little girl were put in the hospital at about this time, and I didnt get to finish it.









Also, the term "Golf course smooth" is apparently a touchy term.
What I ment, was relatively smooth. Our little girls ride thier bikes there, play ball, ect. Also, my wife jogs around it.
So, smooth enough for that.
 
My original response was to pull a harrow or box blade around in all directions. Do you want to redo the whole area or just fix some problem area's? If you have a slope and the topsoil is washing away, you need to pack the soil and it's much better to use sod than grass seed. You can put stakes in the sod to hold it in place and when the sod is layed in a brick pattern, across the slope, it will stop erosion channels from forming. I've used the big staples for holding landscape fabric to hold sod in place on a slope. I pushed them all the way down so they wouldn't bother the mower and figured they'd eventually rust away. You could pull them back out after the sod was established though. For spot repairs or low spots, you could just add topsoil and either overseed or sod. For small lawns you can even hook a rope to a section of an extension ladder and drag it around(maybe throw a couple old tires on it for weight) to level loose topsoil. If you have a bunch of lumps, most of time it's easier to just rake them in a pile and get rid of them. Dave
 
Nofbdybs, I am in Louisiana too. I'm in north LA around Natchitoches. We do not have ground freezing or frost lines because 25 degrees is extreme for us :D The land we are working sounds similar, previous timberland that was harvested and needs smoothed after logging and piling.

Good luck!

CT
 

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