Re-seeding hay field, best method?

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
A customer of mine has asked me to re-seed their 2 main hay fields. We rarely re-seed large areas, we normally just do patches which we rotavate. However for this job I'm obviously going for ploughing. I've spoken to a couple of different people and their methods do vary quite a bit.

It's only ever going to be me travelling it so I need it to be smooth. Their main purpose is for hay making and are rarely grazed.

I was thinking method as follows; plough, flat roll, power harrow/drill, flat roll twice. However I've been told if I flat roll twice I'm at risk of capping the top making the grass struggle to push through.

I wanted to avoid using the wagtail and chain harrows if I could....

Any suggestions much appreciated. Ta!
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
A customer of mine has asked me to re-seed their 2 main hay fields. We rarely re-seed large areas, we normally just do patches which we rotavate. However for this job I'm obviously going for ploughing. I've spoken to a couple of different people and their methods do vary quite a bit.

It's only ever going to be me travelling it so I need it to be smooth. Their main purpose is for hay making and are rarely grazed.

I was thinking method as follows; plough, flat roll, power harrow/drill, flat roll twice. However I've been told if I flat roll twice I'm at risk of capping the top making the grass struggle to push through.

I wanted to avoid using the wagtail and chain harrows if I could....

Any suggestions much appreciated. Ta!

You want it flat so I’d plough, roll, tine it (with some sort of levelling board), flatroll and put tines through again if not level. It wants to be level with a flat roll at every angle before going in with a power Harrow imo.
 

PaulNix

Member
Location
Cornwall
Why plough ? Would save a LOT of work to get it level after plus it brings problems of stones and ploughing weed seeds up if you just did as you normally would for smaller area's.
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
Why plough ? Would save a LOT of work to get it level after plus it brings problems of stones and ploughing weed seeds up if you just did as you normally would for smaller area's.

Our rotavator is only 6ft and there's 14ac to do.... it should be good for stones and its pretty good for weeds (lack of). Seen so many different ways of doing it now I'm not sure the best way to do it. I'm pricing it up as well and it's working out near £200/acre with the seed. However that's looking to vary quite a bit depending on what method I use.
 

KB6930

Member
Location
Borders
If it's level already I wouldn't plough unless your going to give it a long time to settle and weather naturally no amount of rolling can make up for time and weathering

Personally I'd spray off and disc a but of tilth onto the top and level with a power harrow then drill. Some of the best takes of grass I've seen have been using this method
 

Campani

Member
why reseed? presumably, the field is underperforming. Has anybody undertaken a soil test? lime or fertiliser could be all that is required.
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
why reseed? presumably, the field is underperforming. Has anybody undertaken a soil test? lime or fertiliser could be all that is required.

They're not over whelmed with the current crop/grasses, quite old and coarse in places. They want a mix with clover of which there is virtually none. I will test the soil,
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Why are people obsessed with flat rolling a million times???

If you can’t plough level no amount of flat rolling will ever level it out... spray it off, plough, power Harrow, drill, flat roll, close the gate
 

1594mac

Member
Location
Northern Ireland
Same boat here ref reseed, there is probably 4 inches grass on it was going to get it sprayed off then flail it if required before ploughing old grass down its a thick mat which wont help. does that sound ok?
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Run sheep on it each winter, improves the grass no end, you may even get clover appearing naturally, and someone might even pay a few pennies for the sheep to be there. My hay fields are entirely natural 'weed' type grasses, the sward has improved in leaps and bounds since having sheep over the winter and yields are up too.

If they really have to have some clover sown the easiest way would be to run sheep late into April, get them to really tread it down so its quite muddy, spin the seed on, harrow, job done.
 

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