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Old Pasture
My wife and I moved in to our place in the country about 4 years ago. Last year we decided it was time to start taking caring of the 2.5 acres of old pasture, so I was given the OK for our B7500.
This pasture has been sitting for at least 25 years. The previous owners had an idea to start a Christmas tree farm and planted 500 trees. This was 20 years ago. They did nothing after the initial planting, so the highest of these trees is probably 12', and some are as small as 2' (maybe I can market them as Bonsai trees).
Last year, it was all I could do to keep the field cut. I didn't want to give the weeds a chance to reach maturity height. I've already seen the benefit, weeds are being overtaken by more grassy vegetation.
Next, the plan is to rip most of the spruce trees out (saving some for our own use during future holiday seasons), along with the spotted alders that are starting to invade.
What next? My goal is to eventually have a pasture that could support a horse (high quality forage). I don't mind going about it slowly. I would really like to avoid going the start-from-scratch-RoundUp-plough-disc route.
The ground is good old St-Lawrence River valley clay. Do I need a disc? I'm a little iffy about trying to pull one behind my B7500. What about a small cultivator? Would that disturb the surface enough for manually broadcasting seed?
Any experience with this out there?
Thanks,
Paul
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Old Pasture
I bought my property 3 in AL years ago the fields were in tough shape. The previous owner had twin boys in their teens that ran wild. They had 4 wheelers and dug the whole 13 acre field up. The soil here is red clay.
As soon as I got the pasture I cut it and dragged the field with a flex harrow. I repeated the dragging a couple of times. This removed the thatch and scarified the ground. I have since fertilized the field also with the flex harrow behind to allow the fertilizer to penitrate the ground.
I have also tried to keep it mowed.
After 3 years it is not perfect but 100% better than before. It supports 3 horses. I use the flex harrow to knock down the piles.
I have not added grass seed other than planting annual rye to suppliment the horses in the winter. But you can harrow and overplant a better pasture grass to increase rate of recovery.
Hope this helps.PS I have a set of disk harrows and plow but only disk the winter feed areas.
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Old Pasture
Paul
If your choose to buy, with only 2.5 acres I would be inclined to beg or borrow, the flex harrow then get the heaviest you can. I believe mine was English. It is harden steel I can drive over concrete and it doesnot touch the tines.
Another alternative, if the fence is good, is to get goats first and allow them to clean it up and eat the weeds.
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Old Pasture
Thanks for the advice, Peters. I found a Canadian company that makes some nice looking units. No web site, but I found the link below in a search. Of course, I'll be checking the el-cheapo junk piles found at the back of many tractor dealers' lots first.
Paul
Link:
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Old Pasture
We had a spike harrow that we would drag after disking when I was a kid (northern Lake Ont). I am sure it would do the trick. Its just a little difficult to handle.
They are impossible to find here, new or used. I guess that they never used the additional leveling.
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Old Pasture
I got a very nice flex harrow from Northern Tool. It is made in Canada and appears to be the same level of quality you describe. I also bought a three point boom pole so that I can lift it off the ground for transport. I drove it around in circles for a couple of hours the other day. Worked as expected.
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Old Pasture
The 3pt boom lift that Mark H describes is also extremely handy to clean out branches, roots, turf balls, and other garbage that clog up the harrow, by lifting it up off the ground. Otherwise, removing this stuff is really a pain to get out, and lots of work that's hard on your back.
unfortunately i didn't get one because i drag with my ATV (no 3pt).
jim
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Old Pasture
They claim mine is self cleaning, to a greater extent it is, but the odd stick does get caught up and I have to stop and remove it.
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Old Pasture
a neighbor of mine has a old galvanized piece of something, he called it a drag mat, that he used for maintaining the sandy infield of the littleleagues baseball diamonds, he says i can use it whenever i want...is this similiar to a harrow, or will it at least do the trick for leveling out the ground?it is about 5 ft wide, 12 ft long, with small (1/2" x1" squares, kinda like conveyor belting, and it weighs a ton (actually bout 100 pds)...will this work for dragging the pasture and filling in low spots and ruts?
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Old Pasture
That's not really like a harrow but, we use similar devices around here and they work great as levelers. I drag a piece of chain link fence and a rubber conveyor belt behind the disc. I've seen those chain conveyors and really wished that I could get hold of one instead of the chain link.
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