[AT] Pasture drag, rake, ???

[Dean VP]

Mike,

If I did  that I would have lifetime of rock picking to do if I ever wanted to mow it again.

Dean VP
Snohomish, WA 98290
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
..Winston Churchill...

-----Original Message-----
From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com> On Behalf Of Mike M
Sent: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 4:20 PM
To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
Subject: Re: [AT] Pasture drag, rake, ???

Hi Dean, I had the same situation at our previous house, that was set on
10 acres of old cattle pasture.  Don't waste your time with a drag harrow, it won't dig deep enough. Our field was full of holes and fence rows that created a lot berms and what not. I had a friend that was down the road that farmed about 3500 acres. I had enough neighbors agree, that they would allow it to farm it for free, so he had about 40 acres to farm that hadn't been worked in 30 years. He made an initial pass with a 26ft disc towed behind a JD 8340 to my recollection.  He wasn't happy with the outcome so he said he was going to "roll it" and came back back with a 6 bottom plow, I swear that thing went a foot deep.
Then he came back with the disc and some other thing and our field looked like a putting green.

Mike M

On 5/4/2021 6:33 PM, Dean VP wrote:
> I have 6 acres that I mow with my Garden tractor 3 of which is a 
> pasture on a slope which at one time had horses on it.  Now I try to 
> keep the pasture looking nice by mowing it with my Garden Tractor 
> albeit at a slightly higher cut than the rest of the regular lawn. The 
> last couple of years the pasture has gotten really rough from multiple 
> sources including our not so friendly Moles and pocket gophers. There 
> are several old growth stumps buried in the pasture which was well 
> done except will the dirt fill occurs it doesn't completely fill all 
> around the stump down below. So over time and our incessant rain some 
> settling occurs and even some small occur.  I try to fill the gaps 
> with dirt as I find them but each year 2 or 3 more show up. So bottom 
> line is the pasture has gotten rough and beats the crap out of me when I mow it. I would like to use a tool to try to smooth it out a bit and
> thatching the grass mat in places would not be a bad thing.   But our soil
> is terrible and at best could described as glacial till filled with various
> sized rocks.   So I really don't want to disturb the rocks too much since I
> have to mow it later.   So I want to smooth the soil out, not disturb it too
> much.  Known as a quandary.
>
> I'm thinking about acquiring pasture rake or drag with short teeth on 
> it to work the top couple inches or so and  try to smooth out the mole and gopher
> mounds which I have manually knocked down a bit prior to mowing,   I have no
> experience with a pasture type rake.  I have experience with a spiked 
> toothed drag we used on the farm in NW Iowa.  But that was used to 
> smooth out  loose ground in preparation for planting corn or soy 
> beans. That isn't what I need. I think I need maybe 4 4' square 
> flexible sections that can flex with the varying terrain and catch the 
> low as well as high spots. I think I can pull an 8' 8' unit with my 20 
> to 22 HP Garden tractors. I'm more concerned about traction but I can 
> put chains on if necessary.  I'm thinking I would want to take several 
> passes at various different directions.  And hopefully I could use this same implement to dethatch the rest of the lawn.
>
> Some of you surely have experience with something like what I need. 
> What do I need? What are it's critical attributes?  Where do I buy it?  
> I do live in Horse country so there are a few stores that cater to 
> horse owners and of course I have Tractor Supply, Lowes, Home Dept, 
> Grainger, etc. and ???/
>
> I'm looking forward to being educated.
>
> Dean VP
> Snohomish, WA 98290
> "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and 
> gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
> ..Winston Churchill...
>
>
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