The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: Moleskins on March 12, 2012, 11:48:03 pm
-
When would you consider harrowing your grass?
-
When the harrow is delivered at the end of the week ;D
Our grass was undergrazed last year (and many years before) so lots of thatch plus piles of dung from cows and ponies (plus some pretty big sheep lumps as well) so we'll start harrowing right away. It's dry here, of course, so if it stays that way we'll be able to get on. If it was wet, we wouldn't take machinery on to the land.
I plan to harrow each paddock once we move stock off it, to break up and spread the dung.
We've bought a spring tine grass harrow - the tines are adjustable so that you can just do the dung or you can give the grass right good going over.
-
Do you have to harrow if you only have sheep on the land? I thought that their dung might be small enough not to harrow.
-
Hmm, some of my sheep's piles are a fair size but that apart, harrowing with a tine harrow also helps to remove dead grass, thatch and moss, which are problems for us at the moment.
-
what make of harrow did you buy rosemary :farmer:
-
Many farmers view grass harrowing as recreational obsession and an unnecessary waste of fuel, others swear that it improves pasture and breaks up cow pats and flattens mole hills etc. Take your pick.
-
For a fact, it breaks up dung and flattens molehills. I did a bit with a rake yesterday and had that effect but have neither time not inclination to do 10 acres in the same way ;D
All I can say is that we did our lawn with a scarifier, which is the same process, and the improvement in the grass was incredible.
-
harrowing causes the grass to tiller therefore you get more grass it also drags out the dead thatch allowing air into the soil it spreads the mole hills and dung and allows you the opportunity to see your field all over
if you don't harrow you get less grass and the possible damage to machinery in harvesting that grass and listeria caused by soil being present in the conserved grass to me it is a faulse economy not to harrow :farmer:
-
Jings, Robert, I think I agree with you :thumbsup:
-
all farming activities are recreational/therapeutic/calming that is why every body wants to be one
it is only when you have death and have to interact with others that it is a strain :farmer:
-
When would you consider harrowing your grass?
When the ground is firm enough to take the weight of the machinery.
:farmer:
-
When would you consider harrowing your grass?
When the ground is firm enough to take the weight of the machinery.
Ha, there speaks someone else with wet land :wave:
I have promised my mum I will go with her to an event on Sat - but it's been dry(ish) all week and really I should get onto the fields and cut the seaves and harrow.
-
I'll keep asking my Neighbour and when he stops looking at me agast (as he did last week) I will know it's time!!! ;D. Way too wet here at monent (Bala). I think it was about April last year. So many mole hils to flatten.
-
Bone dry here - could do with some rain, but not until we've harrowed.
Actually there's a wee problem - the tractor we're getting on loan, with a view to purchase, is in a shed behind a neighbour's combine and the combine won't start :( Not the sort of vehicle you can push downhill and bump start ::)
-
Oh i love harrowing :love: its my favourite thing. off i go in the terrano with the ol harrow behind, as long as i got me tunes, a pack a fags and some pop, i ll go for hours :thumbsup:
-
Down here in Kent its been bone dry, harrowed last week, dragged out loads of thatch. We bought the smallholding in August and the people that had it before had horses and were organic ( which we found out to be a euphemism for lazy).
We have just had $ days of rain and the ground is a little spongy so going to tape the opportunity to give it a roll.
-
Harrowing. Going to learn something here :)
I presume when you harrow it's like scarifing which I have done in the past. Brought up loads of thatch & moss etc etc Bagged up & put on compost or burned.
When harrowing a sizable area with tractor etc, where does all the rubbish go ??? or does it just sit on top ???
-
Chain harrowing (like towing an old double bed size collection of chains) just spreads it all around a bit - picks up big sticks, brambles etc but mostly just do to flatten mole hills. A neighbour ran over a couple of my fileds with a really swanky spring tyne harrow (lots of pointy prongs at the end of springs) as I have a lot of moss, and it did drag out quite a bit, but not as much as I imagined (comparied with scarifying a lawn), and deposites it wherever you lift the tynes (at the end of your field).
-
I think "harrow" is the word with the most meanings in farming! It doesn't help that manufacturers don't agree on the name for the same device. I can think of the
Chain harrow, usually used on grass, trailed or mounted and arranged so that it works more aggressively pulled forwards than backwards. You can also use it to make a seed bed.
Tine weeder with many thin trailing tines which some say does a better thatch clearing and weeding job on grass than the more common chain
Spring tine harrow is a cultivation implement used to rip through soil or after ploughing
Disc harrow has banks of steel discs set an angle to each other for use after ploughing to produce a seed bed
Drag harrow or grader levels your manège. An inverted chain harrow can do this too
Power harrow is a version of the rotavator
Has anyone got a good guide to the uses of farm implements and machinery? Around here 1000 acres is a small farm and a six row plough is traded in for something bigger. Compact machinery is either very secondhand or very expensive, and it is difficult to get advice on how to use it - except here!
Rather depressingly the best YouTube clips come from EverythingAttachments though "Ted" has a accent which I fnd a bit grating and the terminology is different. He does at least show how various bits of compact kit work though.
-
you missed out the very important zig zag harrows also the ridge harrows
aitkenhead used to be the main manufacturer of harrows in the UK i have a book that illustrates there product range and the application for each model
interesting your mention of the tine weeder it could also be used as a hay rake after balling :farmer:
-
Ive got a harrow...but I dont think my ex-racer will pull it! Ive no tractor so I might try the van!!! or borrow my friends ride on mower. I could ask my neighbour as hes already done his but that means money!
-
Bone dry here - could do with some rain, but not until we've harrowed.
Actually there's a wee problem - the tractor we're getting on loan, with a view to purchase, is in a shed behind a neighbour's combine and the combine won't start :( Not the sort of vehicle you can push downhill and bump start ::)
You could pull it out with a tractor.......oh, wait...... ;D.
-
I harrow my grass each spring when it's dry enough, usually end of March/April. I think it's essential to rake out the dead grass/moss etc and the one year I didn't do it the grass didn't grow as well. I also use it to spread the horse manure that has accumulated over winter! I get great satisfaction from flattening the molehills and it doesn't do a bad job of the trenches made by my rooting pigs, although it can't quite return the soil to a nice even consistency ;D.
Mine is a spring tine one with adjustable angle of the tines, so you can use it lightly or aggressively. The debris from the fields usually ends up stuck in the tines which I have to extricate into a pile after I've finished ::).
This year I harrowed and rolled all the fields to perfection, and since the start of April it has done nothing but rain and my beautifully harrowed and rolled horse paddock is now a muddy quagmire with nothing left on it resembling grass >:(. I have to turn the horses back out onto the winter field (which I spent hours harrowing and rolling) and I'll have to start all over again when it's dry!! ::)
-
This year I harrowed and rolled all the fields to perfection, and since the start of April it has done nothing but rain and my beautifully harrowed and rolled horse paddock is now a muddy quagmire with nothing left on it resembling grass >:(. I have to turn the horses back out onto the winter field (which I spent hours harrowing and rolling) and I'll have to start all over again when it's dry!! ::)
Sounds familiar
-
i have a harrow type thing that i use in the horse arena, (logic) - does anyone know if i can use that yo harrow the field or would it be too lightweight?
-
The things I've seen for manege levelling are pretty lightweight. Chain harrows, the most versatile of the varieties, vary from very heavy to damn heavy and can be arranged to have the tines pointing forward or back for different levels of work.