[Harebell]

Hi there 

We have some water meadows where part of the meadows has become overgrown with tall vegetation (rushes, grass etc).  It is currently grazed by a small flock of sheep but in the past cattle sometimes grazed it too and they helped keep the vegetation down in this part of the meadow, although it’s always been a bit ‘wilder’.  However, we can’t put cattle in there again for the short-medium future.  The drier part of the meadows have been topped and/or made into hay but the overgrown area is too soft to take our large tractor.  The area is too big to be cut with a handheld brush cutter. 

Does anyone know of any equipment I could hire etc that would cut the vegetation on this soft ground?  Any advice would be welcome!

[Backinwellies]

Cattle is the best bet really.... cant you borrow some? 

Quad with mower or topper ... but difficult to obtain.

My OH now swears by the Austrian scythe I bought him for Christmas.... much lighter than brush cutter  and no noise.... he does largish areas with it.

[VEG]

A pedestrian flail mower should do the job

[pgkevet]

All i can cntribute is what not to do...

I have a marshy bit that looked drier than usual 2 years ago but my neighbour pulled my tractor back out of the axle-deep bog. Last year it really did look dry. Fortunately my handy neighbour pulled me out again - although i had got deeper into it than the year before.

Now this year it really does look dry....

[Harebell]

Thanks all.  Will looking into pedestrian flail mower, that seems useful for lots of jobs round here.  Might also see if we can borrow a smaller tractor (we only have massive tractors for arable farming) and see how we go with that!

[pgkevet]

All i can cntribute is what not to do...

I have a marshy bit that looked drier than usual 2 years ago but my neighbour pulled my tractor back out of the axle-deep bog. Last year it really did look dry. Fortunately my handy neighbour pulled me out again - although i had got deeper into it than the year before.

Now this year it really does look dry....

..well it did look dry! Even nice Mr farmer who pulled me out (again) today thought verywhere but where i was stuck looked OK...but it's that sort of 'crust'. At least this year he was already on my land shifting bales while i tried it

[larrylamb]

Hi you can gret intouch with hire companys i have just had a john deere compact tractor and 4 ft topper on hire for the weekend great machine for soft areas.

[SallyintNorth]

First the quad bike got stuck.  Then

[Dreich Pete]

We have a similar problem but in our case the area covered in rushes is a result of the previous owner excavating a landscaping pond and dumping the soil in one area. Unfortunately the soil he lifted was dumped on top of clay so it holds water in the top level and the reeds/rushes have taken over. My solution (in theory) is to cut open drainage trenches down to the pond to try to dry it out. Not that drying grassland has stopped the reeds elsewhere in the meadow.

Right now we have no way of cutting down the rest of the meadow which is standing at between 3 and 5 foot tall grasses, but a friend has offered me a loan of his pedestrian flail (had no idea that's what they were called) and we think we should be able to rig a bracket to the front of the ride on mower so we can push it along under power. With 3 acres to do, pushing it along manually doesn't appeal.

We still don't know how to get rid of all the cuttings...

[pgkevet]

After I got pulled out again this year my neighbour farmer sent soemone over to cut my hill field (where courage and skills escape me) and that guy had a go at this swampy bit too..He actualy managed most of it with a big heavy John deer.. althugh I can see some 2-3foot ruts where he must have come close to a come-uppance ..and he did leave a tiny patch

[VEG]

We have a similar problem but in our case the area covered in rushes is a result of the previous owner excavating a landscaping pond and dumping the soil in one area. Unfortunately the soil he lifted was dumped on top of clay so it holds water in the top level and the reeds/rushes have taken over. My solution (in theory) is to cut open drainage trenches down to the pond to try to dry it out. Not that drying grassland has stopped the reeds elsewhere in the meadow.

Right now we have no way of cutting down the rest of the meadow which is standing at between 3 and 5 foot tall grasses, but a friend has offered me a loan of his pedestrian flail (had no idea that's what they were called) and we think we should be able to rig a bracket to the front of the ride on mower so we can push it along under power. With 3 acres to do, pushing it along manually doesn't appeal.
We still don't know how to get rid of all the cuttings...

All the pedestrian flail mowers I have ever seen are not push along they have drive wheels. The pedestrian bit just means you have to walk behind it.

[midtown]

Hi there 

We have some water meadows where part of the meadows has become overgrown with tall vegetation (rushes, grass etc).  It is currently grazed by a small flock of sheep but in the past cattle sometimes grazed it too and they helped keep the vegetation down in this part of the meadow, although it’s always been a bit ‘wilder’.  However, we can’t put cattle in there again for the short-medium future.  The drier part of the meadows have been topped and/or made into hay but the overgrown area is too soft to take our large tractor.  The area is too big to be cut with a handheld brush cutter. 

Does anyone know of any equipment I could hire etc that would cut the vegetation on this soft ground?  Any advice would be welcome!

What is your location?
Any chance of finding someone local with an alpine tractor on flotation tyres, with topper?

[Zebedee]

A permanently wet meadow might arise from a field boundary drainage channel having become silted up. If there is a channel or ditch that's full, then clearing it out will lead to a drop in the water table and the wet meadow suddenly becomes less problematic. Putting cattle into wet areas simple leads to the ground getting badly poached. 

[midtown]

A permanently wet meadow might arise from a field boundary drainage channel having become silted up. If there is a channel or ditch that's full, then clearing it out will lead to a drop in the water table and the wet meadow suddenly becomes less problematic. Putting cattle into wet areas simple leads to the ground getting badly poached.

Ditch maintenance may indeed help, as may selective conservation grazing.
Other factors which need taking into consideration include geographical location and topography. The closer to the coast the location for example, there may be insufficient 'drop' to allow good drainage and the water table may fluctuate, especially if spring tides effectively prevent drainage from the land mass.
If the wet meadow is lower than the surrounding area, it will also act as a natural catchment and you'll not get water to flow uphill, despite all your efforts!

[Zebedee]

What I'm saying is, these problems of boggy pasture need looking at and analysing in the round rather than simply saying 'here's some wet ground, what animals would suit it best?'. It's a fair bet that the original makers of the meadow would have put some system in place to keep the ground reasonably dry, particularly in summer. Even the ground in purpose-made water meadows can harden and dry in summer. There are usually ditch systems round them which control the water table to manage otherwise boggy ground. They get abandoned and silt up then the field floods regularly. People think 'Oh, they're water meadows, that's why the field's permanently wet'. Not necessarily so.