J Pike

A month ago we sprayed and brush hogged 5 acre' s that we plan on planting No Plow in next weekend and we need to get rid of the remaining dead grass and weeds to beable to get seed contact with the soil, what is the best way to get rid of the dead junk with out the use of a disc? We dont have enough time to rake by hand, do you think a drag such as a wood pallet with nails in it or a chain link fence would remove it ? Also would Rye work better than NO Plow? Thanks, Pike

Wooddust

Big difference between no plow and straight rye. Id go for the no plow if i could.
I assume you cannot burn. Raking 5 acres will be a bugger. And a drag will go about 30 feet and be clogged. Id scatter no plow and get a harrow section and drag the bejesus out of it.

Dan O.

If you make a few passes over the field with the bushhog the grass should be very finely chopped. It should quickly decompose in this state. A light discing (1-2" ) after broadcasting the seed should give you good soil contact.

Dan O.

lunchbucket

Can you burn the area?

J Pike

Thanks for the reply' s guys!!!
Unfortunately I cannot burn the area.
DAN O, a month ago we brush hogged the plots as short as possible ( the plots looked like a freshly mowed lawn when we were finished) we then immediately sprayed the heck out of them the same day. 5 days later everything in the plot was completely dead, so brush hogging again wouldnt help any, we just need to find a way to remove the remaining couple inches of very thick, dead grass and weeds so we can get good soil contact, any options other than discing? if not I will try to borrow a disc that we can pull behind an ATV. Thanks, Pike

Dan O.

Other than discing, rototilling or mowing shorter (scalping) there aren' t many options. If you were doing a smaller area you could buy a dethatching blade for a lawnmower. The dethatcher has fingers running down from the blade which rip the dead grass out and let the mower blade chop it up. If you could get something like that for a bushhog it would clean out everything.

Dan O.

Uncle Al

This is our first year planting a succsesful food plot. It is only about 1/2 acre. the entire field was sprayed 2X' s with RoundUp. 2/3rds were raked, disced, limed, and fertalized, disced, seeded and draged with a pallet. Another small portation was done the same without the discing or raking the dead grass. And the last area was just sprayed with the RU and seeded. it was all seeded at the same time. about and hour before a good rain. All areas are growing, the two with the lime and fert are about the same. The last is doing OK. I would try seeding and draging just before a rain if it is too big an area to rake.

lunchbucket

Can you get a hay rake??? You might be able to use a spring tooth harrow... Why can' t you burn?

J Pike

Once again thanks for the help guys!! I cant burn because the property owner would never allow us to do it. Dan, I can borrow a small disc for an ATV., My question now is how well do you think it will work? And I know its hard to say but, how long do you think it will take to lighty disc 1 acre that ground has never been worked? tDo you think we could disc 4 or 5 acres in 1 day with this type of equipment? Thanks, Pike

germain

Jeff,I have a garden tractor disc I pull behind my ATV.I put a concrete block on the back for weight.On my rape plot the weeds were a good three feet high.After spraying them with round up I went up a week later and ran the disc over the weeds until they were pretty chopped up and plenty of ground was showing,the important thing is for seed to ground contact.This plot which I did in late August was about an acre and took me two hours to disc.I then spread the rape seed.At this time the rape is green lush and very thick,things worked out great.
I' m new at this stuff also but I' m just sharing what worked for me.Hopefully it helps you out.
The clover is looking great too!