We have an arena that hasn’t been used in about 7 years. It has a sand base but is overgrown with weeds and grass. Thoughts on how to start getting it up and usable again?
Get someone in to bushwhack with heavy equipment?
Start by using RoundUp (or other appropriate broad spectrum weed killer) and then drag it to see what you have in terms of a base. You might just need to harrow it good to make it functional. Or maybe just add some new sand or whatever the base footing was. Or maybe it has to be completely redone. There’s no way of knowing until you get rid of the vegetation that has taken over.
Contact your local County Agent or Soil Conservation office. They may be able to help you.
G.
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Oh I read “area” not arena. Forget I said bushwhack. The herbicide and drag and footing makes sense.
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I’ve rehabbed mine pretty well by mowing as close as possible, raking the organic stuff and removing, and then, once the growing stuff is dead, dragging with a chain harrow. Might take a couple mows.
More work than spraying, but an option if you want to limit herbicide.
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Just start using it.
When it gets down to mostly sand, start dragging it.
After a little, all the growth in there is toast.
Once you are down to your footing, evaluate if you need to add to it, if much has blown or washed away.
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Do you have an arena drag? I used a TR3 and drug in circles to pull the weeds out. Then I went in a straight line to drag them out of the ring. Hope this is helpful somehow.
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We turned horses out on ours then we drug it a bunch of times. It’s a pain because you have to keep stopping to remove all the piles of dead weeds and roots. We used round up around the edges and now that it’s used often no weeds grow.
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Yup! Drag it. Roundup. Drag. Ride. Drag. Ride. Drag. You will probably have to add more sand.
If you have a neighbour with a boom sprayer for crops, perhaps he could come and spray it for you. Once or twice around and it would be done. Saves doing it by hand sprayer. Ask me how I know…
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You may want to be careful about dragging it if you are pulling out live vegetation. Live root may be in the base and if the base IS ok that’s a pretty good way to ruin it!
I’d mow it, then a few days later hit it up with round up. You can skip mowing, but it takes a lot less round up if it is short (just wait a few days so it starts growing again so the round up world). Then once it is dead you can drag it. At that point the roots don’t pull up a lot of earth (or base) with them.
You can ride on it, but until you get the vegetation out it’s hard to effectively drag so you may be creating track ruts that will be hard to fix. Also depending on where you live and how many horses are on the surface, just riding may not finish off the growth. I ride in my arena regularly, drag it almost obsessively and every year I have to give it a round up treatment in late summer to get rid of some minor growth.
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I agree. Roots can go very deep and could be into the base. If you just pull them you may really dislodge things deeper than you would expect.
I agree with this post - mow, spray, drag. If you have some kids without enough to do I’d have them rake/pull/remove clumps once they are good and dead.
It will probably take a few efforts for it to work…but this is a good time of year to get started if you’re in a northern climate - mine is mostly dead weeds right now and i’m taking advantage of that before things start growing again. (Mostly in the corners but much easier to deal with now than in high summer.)
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We had this when we bought our farm. We burned it first. Then used an implement on our tractor to scar the footing, which was bluestone (so, harder than sand, and it needed to be loosened). This also got a lit of the debris out. Then, it was add footing and use RoundUp on weeds as necessary. 10 years later, I no longer have weed issues, but I’ve also had to add a lot of footing. I agree with folks who say be careful about pulling weeds. They likely ARE in the base, and you will mess up your base by pulling them. You’ll also put your back out. Ask me how I know.
Good luck and know that it may take a year or two in order to get everything really perfect, but its totally doable and worth it!
Schedule
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OP, I never had weeds that were in my base. I dug a few by hand and they came right up, so that’s why I used my drag in a small circle. I also didn’t need to use a weed killer on mine. Those are good points others made. Good luck w yours!
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Thank you all for your posts! Much appreciated!!
