Rough/Bumpy/Uneven Pasture

[AmarachAcres]

Hey guys!

So here is my conundrum:

When we bought our place last year we knew the pastures needed worked. They were weedy, fences falling down, etc…

One other big thing was how rough the pasture is. When you mow, you had better have a good suspension. Even at a crawl it is teeth rattling.

We’ve been told and researched two ways to deal with this:

The first is a complete over haul. Get someone to come in and tear that crap up and even it out. Reseed and let the grass establish. We can do this one patch at a time or all at once.

The other that our extension suggested is to slowly fill in all the ruts with more dirt. If you put an inch of dirt down at a time the already established grass will poke through and keep going.

This is taking FOREVER.

We have 6 acres, about 4 1/2 are pasture. We currently rotate the horses through 3 pastures. Our boarders have a small lot of their own as they don’t want to put their two boys in a herd. So that is rotated back and forth as well.

How do you guys get/keep your pastures from being rutted messes?

[DHCarrotfeeder]

One option is to buy one of those steel rollers that you fill with water and roll the pasture when it’s not hard. We tried that and it had very little effect - the tractor tires did much more to press down the high spots. I suspect if I did it when the ground was still softer, the wheels would create damage instead.

My next plan for the rougher sections is to plug aerate it like crazy and drag it to help fill in the low spots.

Maybe I need to use a box blade or something to skim the high spots. These both require reseeding and significant regrowth time. Or just till it, smooth it, seed it and let it settle.

Sorry that’s not too helpful but if you want to come to the east coast you can try the roller.

In terms of prevention the worst areas are caused by turning out on soft/muddy ground. So for us this only exists in our sacrifice areas.

David

[Romany]

Yes, you can do a lot with a mix of light disking, harrowing, plug-aerating and mowing. If you can keep going with a constant rotation of all of the above then you won’t need to pull the horses and re-seed, which will take a couple of years, at least, until you can turn them out on it again. Of course, that means you now need a little tractor with lots of toys…

BTDT, and it does work!

[Beverley]

Oh, yes, I have the new little tractor and toys. My pasture is red sand, and for me it is a progressive step by step process, smoothing areas out with the rake or the bucket. Given the sand, aeration is a non starter, but I’m just slowly getting rid of the weeds and smoothing where it needs it and fertilizing and overseeding.

[Jumper_girl221]

Over time…a bush hog set REALLY short will even things out (really hard on your blades as a FYI).

Short of that, hitting with a box blade, or lightly disking in sections is the only thing I can think of.

When we moved to our current farm, my husband used the low bushhog method. If you have farmers around they might be willing to hit it with a cultivator? (I think its called) but it might need to be rough disked first.

I’m so thankful this area has moved away from hilled corn…you want a PITA to even pasture out, have a field with rows of corn stalks on 6" hills!

[cowboymom]

You could back blade the high spots with a tractor…

[winter]

This is my pasture as well. It came as a lumpy mess since the former owner had the entire thing disked then left it to re-grow without properly re-seeding or smothing out the rows. Driving the trator out there for any amount of time is guranteed back breaker. I cringe watching the horses gallop across it and have almost seriously sprained my own ankle just trying to walk there.

Having to disk, grade and re-seed the entire thing sounds like such a long process and I don’t think I have enough room to move the horses elsewhere until they could go back on it. It may be my only option though.

I had hoped that having horses out on the pasture would improve the lumpiness bubut sadly it has not. I am hoping to spread my compost from my manure pile out there to improve things, but I don’t have enough to ever make a difference since it’s a 10 acre field.

[AmarachAcres]

The problem with using a tractor blade to even it out is that the tractor itself goes up and down and I have had VERY hard time trying to keep the blade even with where I want it.

I’ve tried when redoing the area we wanted the round pen, and when trying to use the tractor, I start pulling dirt even then the tractor itself hits a bump and lowers or raises so that I either miss completely or cut into the ground myself.

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

You describe my pasture precisely. The expert rural dude I keep on retainer mowed it, then plowed the crap out of it, then dragged it with this ginormous, slightly V-shaped steel thing. He has done this twice and will need to do it at least once more. The steel thing flattens everything out somewhat. I have no idea what it’s called.

[AmarachAcres]

Glad to know I’m not alone!

Well, not glad for you guys. Bah, you know what I mean.

[Beverley]

@AmarachAcres;7721018

The problem with using a tractor blade to even it out is that the tractor itself goes up and down and I have had VERY hard time trying to keep the blade even with where I want it.

Are you talking about a rear mounted blade, or front mounted? I have a rear mounted rake, which can yield that bounce effect in certain areas too. But the bucket on the front end is very good for flattening hills. My hazard is getting stuck in the bottomless sand, but as long as my truck is around so I can unstick myself (or unstick using the bucket but that’s a long explanation), I’m okay.