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Southern manitoba | Last time we broke up a field we used a heavy wishek disk. Chewed it up really well but the field was rougher than when we started after 2 passes. Maybe I don't know how to set a disk but has anyone tried these vertical tillage tools to break hay. We probably can't travel more than 5mph and stay in the seat. Thanks in advance |
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Wisconsin | Fall burn off with Roundup
Chisel plow, disk, field cultivator and plant
Does work ok with green hay too |
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north-central Indiana west of Fulton | We have been spraying a fall burn down and no tilling in the spring. |
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| fall burn and no till wheat |
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oxford county, ontario | Spray burndown, wait a week, 2 passes with a Landoll VT disc and plant. |
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Amherst WI | Same here. By the time you work the sod down so you have a decent seed bed you've got at least three passes in it. |
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Southern manitoba | What speed with the landroll? Forgot to add did the roundup a week ago |
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SW “Ohia” | dfarmer,
Two options traditionally:
1. Fall burndown, spring no-till.
2. Spring moldboard plow.
Really no in-between. Trying to chisel or disc that old, tough sod is a losing battle around "here." Flipping it with a moldboard works extremely well if you want to go the tillage route. If it has been used as a pasture, then the compaction may demand it. At least from my experience. |
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central kansas reno county | If it is alfalfa hay field we usually will hit it with a chisel after a rsin them put a v blade plow and plant works really well here. |
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| We fall burned down a hay field and no tilled in corn. Haven't harvested it yet but looking like it'll make 150 which is pretty good for a hay field that barely made a Bale an acre last year. We're big on no till so unless its a rough field I'd would just plant into the sod. |
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Northern CA | Spray out, switch plow, disc, maybe disc again, Roterra or power harrow ahead of drill |
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southern MN | You folk must not have ground squirrel, pocket gophers, badgers, and other critters?
After 5-6 years its about impossible to mow and bale a field on the bumps and holes. Can't stay in the tractor seat.
I have no idea how notill can work on row crops, it sure couldn't in alfalfa around here. I would think your row crop fields would get terribly bumpy and hole filled. There is no notill around here.....
I just mowed and mostly baled an acre of grass pasture in my neighbors pasture. The safety latch popped 6-7 times, there are areas the grass isn't really cut because the disc mower flew up so high over mounds. And I was driving about what I used to with a sickle mower, very slow. My bale basket didnt feed right spit out several bales and jammed because of the rough ground. I won't do that again next year, unless he lets me rework that patch and get it level. Its not worth it. I'll wreck something.
It has to be different 'there' than it is here, because one couldn't possibly plant into the rough stuff one gets in 5 years or so 'here'.
I just worked up a 1/4 mile grass field road, the gophers and whatever is making the large open holes made it impossible to go with a loaded wagon. I ran the field cultivator over it one day, that scuffed up the green grass, slightly leveled some mounds. The next day I took the soil saver disk chisel and made 2 passes. Really worked it up nice.
Followed that with 2 passes with the field cultivator, and made a real nice level seed bed. Hope the soil saver points went deep enough to take out most of the old tunnels, so the critters have to start out fresh again.....
Paul |
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| Rip borders, stubble disc borders 2x, Tri plane borders, rip whole field, switch plow followed by ripper or rip 2nd time followed by stubble disc, finish disc & ring roll 1-3x land-plane 1-2x list and let sit till next crop. |
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| Here we spray in the fall and seed into it with a bourgault 5710. Then heavy harrow after a couple days to help level and break up sod lumps. There is a lot of diesel burning to break up hay in other parts. I always find it interesting reading about different ways of doing things.
Edited by MW farms 9/28/2015 21:40
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Nc Ks. | I'm not a die-hard no-tiller and if it's rough then you have to smooth it. But if it's not rough, I'd spray it and no-till it. Some of my best yielding fields started out as alfalfa and then when to my wheat/soybean rotation. |
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Nusbaum Farms LLC Bellfountain, OR | Disk ripper. Followed by 2-3 diskings, a roller, moldboard plow, then heavy harrow and roller. Gotta bury that sod.
-Orin |
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Stafford County, Kansas | When my father had hay he would let third cutting flower then burn down and 3 weeks later hit it with the fallowmaster and plant to wheat. |
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Pasco WA. | What kind of hay? Makes a big difference if its alfalfa or grass sod. Also what crop are you planting and how fine of seedbed is required?
For corn following alfalfa I like notill. I have a sick pivot of alfalfa that I plant to notill corn into asap after 1st cutting next year.
This year I planted corn into timothy after 1st cutting. Had it custom turbotilled twice and planted. Worked great and the corn looks fantastic. Pretty much requires using RR corn though in order to kill the old hay crop. |
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Southern manitoba | Mostly grass with a little alfalfa. Will be seeding wheat in late April/may after snow melts. Need to do some sort of tillage to smooth the field. We have lots of gophers and mole hills. |
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WC MN | Don't forget coyotes, your dirt is maybe too black and hard for them to dig. Always interesting to watch threads on breaking alfalfa, always a notill hater in the bunch, might as well be you ;-) Something often overlooked is the minor detail of alfalfa being notill as it has been in the ground for 3-5 years and still magically regrows after each cutting WITHOUT tillage!! Is it such a big leap of faith to believe that beautiful black Southern MN soil could produce for just one more year without tillage by direct seeding corn or soybeans into alfalfa stubble? My preference would be to 2x2 the P & K for corn which of course limits planter choices or run heavy spreads the last year of alfalfa to prepare for corn year. May also need heavy down pressure springs/bags and some type of spoked closing wheel. You can always bring the plow out after harvesting 250bu corn after alfalfa, it will still be easier to work down than hacking and beating sod to pieces. No offense intended just disturbing to watch all the work that goes into breaking sod and hear about poor stands and yield when it should have been some of their best corn. |
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Southern Pa. | paul the original - 9/28/2015 21:21
You folk must not have ground squirrel, pocket gophers, badgers, and other critters?
After 5-6 years its about impossible to mow and bale a field on the bumps and holes. Can't stay in the tractor seat.
I have no idea how notill can work on row crops, it sure couldn't in alfalfa around here. I would think your row crop fields would get terribly bumpy and hole filled. There is no notill around here.....
I just mowed and mostly baled an acre of grass pasture in my neighbors pasture. The safety latch popped 6-7 times, there are areas the grass isn't really cut because the disc mower flew up so high over mounds. And I was driving about what I used to with a sickle mower, very slow. My bale basket didnt feed right spit out several bales and jammed because of the rough ground. I won't do that again next year, unless he lets me rework that patch and get it level. Its not worth it. I'll wreck something.
It has to be different 'there' than it is here, because one couldn't possibly plant into the rough stuff one gets in 5 years or so 'here'.
I just worked up a 1/4 mile grass field road, the gophers and whatever is making the large open holes made it impossible to go with a loaded wagon. I ran the field cultivator over it one day, that scuffed up the green grass, slightly leveled some mounds. The next day I took the soil saver disk chisel and made 2 passes. Really worked it up nice.
Followed that with 2 passes with the field cultivator, and made a real nice level seed bed. Hope the soil saver points went deep enough to take out most of the old tunnels, so the critters have to start out fresh again.....
Paul
It's always interesting to hear how much different things are in other areas.l can't imagine a hay field that rough. Here, (South central Pennsylvania) we generally put a qt.of Round up and 1 pt. of 2,4D on in the fall and go to corn in the spring. Or sometimes we take a cutting in early May, plant Roundup ready corn, and deal with it later. Fall killed sods make a beautiful mellow field to notill in the spring.I have fields that haven't been touched with tillage of any kind for 20 plus years.l can drive 15 m.p.h. through those fields with no problem, just need to keep an eye out for an occasional ground hog hole. We generally take the skid loader and smooth out the occasional ground hog hole before planting a field to hay, and occasionally other times if needed. I do religiously plant cover crops on any ground that has no hay or small grain crop on it, so as to have no open ground over winter.It also has to be an emergency situation before we would run over a field that is to wet to plant with harvesting equipment. I personally own no tillage equipment of any sort, except for the Rototiller my wife uses in the garden. I am always amazed at the amount of tillage work I see being done in the corn belt every time I take a drive through the Midwest. I definitely realize different areas have different needs, just can't help wondering if it's really all necessary.Saw a farmer deep ripping a freshly harvested soybean field in South west Ohio about a week ago.Around here that would be a great field to notill corn into next spring.There must be a good reason for it, as tillage is time consuming, and not exactly cheap, either. But, as the old saying goes, whatever floats your boat!
Good luck!
Edited by JD 9400 9/29/2015 00:25
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Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | If I have to do it myself, the pattern is usually disk 3-4's. The trick is to progressively go a little deeper each time. It is very tempting to bury the disk 8" and go, but that just makes chunks. Better to go down a couple inches each pass, and pull a ring roller behind on each pass. Then plow it, with a roller behind the plow, then rip it with a ring roller. Notice a pattern? A little deeper each pass, and a ring roller every time.
Some of the guys I work for just rototill it as slow as possible, and then rip. It really does the same thing, and probably takes no more fuel.
Spraying the hay dead before, or waiting until it grows back 6" and then spraying, and waiting a couple weeks is well worth it. Dead crowns chop up much easier. There is no way you are going to get rid of the crowns enough that it will blow, here anyway. So might as well do a good job in the fall.
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southern MN | Since I bought a farmable swamp - can cut the grass most years, but too wet in spring to get in until June or July - I only have a very small patch of alfalfa.
It was always a great corn field following. Didnt need very much N.
Wonder if I can get some pics of the neighbors pasture. Often can't really see elevation in pictures tho. The critter piles are something else, I would not get seed contact, would not want to take a corn head/ combine through that. Never mind beans! My alfalfa after 5 years would be that way too.
The past 2 decades we have something making big holes in the ground. Some debate as to badger, fox, coyote......
Paul |
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NE SD | I had a field that was in crp for 20 years. Extremely rough with old pocket gopher mounds sodded over. Cut with discbine in fall (very fun) and baled. Sprayed roundup after regrowth. We used a Landoll vt on it multiple times fall and spring and sod worked up decent. Didn't level field too well though. After next years corn it was worked again and now will be continuos no till. Vt did nice job of cutting up sod without turning up big slabs like a wishek or plowing would. |
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Elizabethtown,KY | If it is smooth fall burndown and spring no till beans or corn. |
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west central wisconsin | The difference between smooth and very rough here, is mostly, if the field is in grass or alfalfa.
HERE, pocket gophers do not invade an alfalfa field, but they sure will a grass field, or waterway.
For sure, if you have a wet farm, like I know you mention, growing alfalfa is nearly impossible. Many, many differences, for sure.
It just seems like mice and gophers love grass, and fox and coyotes love rodents..... so, one crop leads to the other issues.
To the OP, as a kid we always tried to break out an old hay field, with about 6 tillage passes. Fall or spring burndown completely changed that, and we have notilled these fields for a long time now. If I was gonna use tillage to break up a hay field, I would use shallow tillage first, and then deep, heavy tillage. Doing deep tillage first, like a chisel plow, only leaves large chunks that are tough to deal with. Breaking up the top few inches first, makes it flow much better. A field cultivator or shallow disking works well...HERE, and an inline ripper ran slow will leave the surface quite level.
Good luck |
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ND | I've been spraying it down and then hitting it twice with my Landoll VT. It doesn't turn up any root balls or make clumps but it does cut things up so that you get enough dirt movement around the planter to get a nice seed bed. It doesn't do a super good job at leveling groud.
I broke up some ground for a relative this last year that has never been farmed before. They wanted to plant corn into it and there was a few really uneven spots in the field. The disk didn't follow the contour of the ground very well there so it was basically straight sod. Before working the ground they were second guessing doing the tillage pass to save some money and thinking about just planting right into the sod. After seeing the difference in stand it was clear to all of us that the Landoll pass was time/fuel well spent. |
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NW KS/ SC ID | Out in KS we use blade plows for summer fallowing.
But, the same tool in Idaho is referred to as an Alfalfa Crowner.
Look at the blade plow offerings from Sunflower to get an idea of what they are if you have not heard of/ or seen one.
We personally have never used it for breaking out alfalfa, but if they think its the cats meow in Idaho and Oregon, they must be onto something. :)
Edited by GM Guy 10/2/2015 00:17
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Oxford County, ON | 6-7mph |
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what is your favorite tool to break hay ground
