# What tool to use to get th ground smooth before planting hay



## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

I have a couple pieces of ground that were pasture for well over 50 years and are terribly rough and uneven and would like to get them like a sheet of glass before planting orchard grass the end of the month. Last year I cut the ground with a 9 foot offset disc and went back multiple trips with a 12 foot tandem disc harrow and I just could not get the ground smooth enough for my liking but I was planting wheat so I let it slide. What would be the best tool to get the ground like a sheet of glass before planting hay? A few people have said a spring tine harrow or a culti mulcher would either of these be good or is there something better. The ground is also rocky if that makes any difference. Thanks, Hayden


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

A Perfecta II by Unverferth.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

I use a cultimulcher or roller harrow-both the brillion and Jd models are good and you can lay the ground out smooth as glass then roll with the tines up after seeding.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I've just disced and rolled with decent results but I could do a better job with a cultipacker instead of a roller.....I just don't have one. Best I've ever seen though, was when I had a friend run a land plane over a field before I planted. It WAS like glass and is still pretty smooth.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

We used to use a spring tooth drag before planting hay.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

My wife bought one these in 12' wide with the works, Danish Tines, spike bar and the roller basket (crumbler) about a year ago and it's really worked out well. The fields here have never been as smooth as they are now. The usual order here is to run the Amco 11' double offset F17 bog disc harrow, the CaseIH 14' 475 finish disc harrow, broadcast fertilize, then this new tool and then drill. If there's a lot crop or weed residue in the field it will tend to drag it up and can be a mess but now they can mow much closer than before and they'll be even less residue so hopefully that will be a thing of the past now. Come take a look at it sometime. The company said you can pull the 12' one with about 60hp, they must have been talking about sand because even the 5140 Maxxum knows it's back there when you sink those Danish tines in deep ;-)

http://www.proaerator.com/cultivator-garden.php

This field was smoothed out with the new Cultivator.


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## simangus (May 13, 2012)

what about a pull type box blade


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Grateful11 said:


> My wife bought one these in 12' wide with the works, Danish Tines, spike bar and the roller basket (crumbler) about a year ago and it's really worked out well. The fields here have never been as smooth as they are now. The usual order here is to run the Amco 11' double offset F17 bog disc harrow, the CaseIH 14' 475 finish disc harrow, broadcast fertilize, then this new tool and then drill. If there's a lot crop or weed residue in the field it will tend to drag it up and can be a mess but now they can mow much closer than before and they'll be even less residue so hopefully that will be a thing of the past now. Come take a look at it sometime. The company said you can pull the 12' one with about 60hp, they must have been talking about sand because even the 5140 Maxxum knows it's back there when you sink those Danish tines in deep ;-)
> 
> http://www.proaerator.com/cultivator-garden.php
> 
> This field was smoothed out with the new Cultivator.


We always used to pull a packer behind the drill as well. Actually when planting hay we pull a 10' cultimulcher to take the tractor tracks out with then the drill behind that and a packer behind the drill.

For serious leveling we have a three point field cultivator with leveling boards behind it, only works well in very clean dirt but if you set the springs up tighter on the boards they will drag a little dirt as well to fill in any low spots.


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## Waterway64 (Dec 2, 2011)

We gravity irrigate so our land has to lay right. On a rough field like you discribe, we rollar pack, land plane three times, then plant and roller pack again. A lot of trips but it makes a tough feild decent. Mel


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

Grateful11 said:


> http://www.proaerator.com/cultivator-garden.php


The perfecta II that Bonfire pointed out looks like the same thing, just a different manufacturer.

I typically prefer to plow a field like you describe under or have someone put it into corn (or whatever you want) for a year or two. This helps kill out the weeds and break up the sod. The field I just planted didn't need to be plowed since the farmer who had corn on it left it nicely tilled for me. I just hit it once with our tandem disc to break up the top and kill out the few weeds that had started then made a pass over it with our JD cultimulcher and then seeded it with our Brillion seeder. It turned out really smooth, but there are a few rocks that I still need to pick out of it.

The tool I would love to have is a dyna-drive (http://www.earthmastertillage.com/product/dyna-drive). They were originally built by Hart-Carter, but Earthmaster (formerly M&W) makes them now. They don't compact the soil as much as plowing/discing. We ran one as a demo years ago and the only problem we had was not enough tractor on the front. The 8 foot model was too much for our Ford 5000 and the JD 2940 we borrowed (with 4 wheel drive) had all it wanted, but it still worked really well. Now that we have a JD 4020, we probably have enough power to pull it the way it should be run.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

I use a 24' perfecta as bonfire mentioned. Before that, I pulled a H beam behind my disc going each way. That did a pretty good job and I still use it on new ground that has just been cleared. I use 2 pull points from the beam to keep it fron see-sawing. Mike


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

We do some flood, but mostly pivot irrigate. I always try to disk, cultimulch, and drill in the seed the same direction that I am going to cut, bale, stack the hay. With pivots that means following the pivot wheel tracks or close to it.


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## LeadFarmer (May 10, 2011)

We do it a little bit different here, I'm assuming because we are entirely flood irrigated. .

I would have gone in and ripped the dirt with a Koenig chisel, then plowed under the trash, then done one or two passes with a Case 790 Heavy offset disk. After the disk I would run the laser level, Spectra Precision, to get the field perfectly level. Behind the laser we will run a land plane to smooth out any little bumps, and then it's ready for the drill!

I would advise against using a disk if you are trying to level a field. Well, an offset disk anyways, we have never run anything but an offset disk, and they are notorious for moving your dirt around and throwing the field off level. A finish chisel, such as Dave Koenig makes, is a great tool. It's function is similar to a disk, but it will leave the ground level behind the laser. We like to use it for the first pass after the water when going into lettuce, then run the big offset disk behind it very lightly.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Thanks for all the replies, I ran out of "likes". I like the idea of a cultimulcher because I need to pack the ground anyways before planting and if I could also use it to smooth the ground out that would be a good purchase. What worries me is the cultimulcher won't be able to fill in the low spots in the field. Also how does a cultimulcher deal with rocks?

I looked up a land plane that a couple of you mentioned and it looked like it would do the trick of cutting the high spots down and filling in the holes but I wonder how it would work on rolling land as all the pictures I saw was on flat ground and I wonder if it would drag up a pile of rocks. The downside is that would probably be a expensive piece of equipment that would not get used very often and only has one use.

The tine cultivator like grateful11 has and other similar products looks nice....I wonder how the job it does would compare to a cultimulcher as I would still have to have something to pack the ground after running a tine cultivator before planting I guess.


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Chain Harrow! Go at right angle to the last discing, or pull tandem behind disc.
JMHO, HTH, Dave
Edit: Set disc to less aggressive on last trip over, as this will leave less ridging, and will firm the seedbed as well.
Again JMHO, YMMV, Dave


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

My wife said she thought she paid $3200 for the 12' Precision Welding cultivator. The crumbler roller basket on the back is made of 3/4" R-Bar and is very well balanced and quite heavy. If you pick up while still moving at a fair clip it spin for a long time. It will pack a field to a degree but not like a Cultipacker. How much does the Perfecta cost, couldn't find a price anywhere?


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

I run a 20' John Deere 724 mulch finisher with a DMI crumbler behind it. Takes 200 hp to pull it fast enough but levels good, drags in low spots and leaves most dirt like a lettuce bed. Usually follow that with a brillion cultimulcher to finish leveling and firm up the top. It was so dry this year, I skipped the cultimulcher and prayed for rain. Got 2" and it firmed up real nice and now I am drilling into it with 1560 John Deere drill.


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## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

80lb rail behind disk. Chained on ends to A point. Konger the tow chain the more material it will pull


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

The final step. Did I mention before that auto steer is awesome!


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## haystax (Jul 24, 2010)

LeadFarmer said:


> We do it a little bit different here, I'm assuming because we are entirely flood irrigated. .
> 
> I would have gone in and ripped the dirt with a Koenig chisel, then plowed under the trash, then done one or two passes with a Case 790 Heavy offset disk. After the disk I would run the laser level, Spectra Precision, to get the field perfectly level. Behind the laser we will run a land plane to smooth out any little bumps, and then it's ready for the drill!
> 
> I would advise against using a disk if you are trying to level a field. Well, an offset disk anyways, we have never run anything but an offset disk, and they are notorious for moving your dirt around and throwing the field off level. A finish chisel, such as Dave Koenig makes, is a great tool. It's function is similar to a disk, but it will leave the ground level behind the laser. We like to use it for the first pass after the water when going into lettuce, then run the big offset disk behind it very lightly.


we just bought a Koenig finish ripper as well. It is my favorite groundworking tool at the moment. I'm a little undecided about the wings on the shanks, but combined with the Koenig ring roller this is a very nice setup for keeping things smooth while doing some fairly serious tillage work.


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## LeadFarmer (May 10, 2011)

haystax said:


> we just bought a Koenig finish ripper as well. It is my favorite groundworking tool at the moment. I'm a little undecided about the wings on the shanks, but combined with the Koenig ring roller this is a very nice setup for keeping things smooth while doing some fairly serious tillage work.


Ours does not have the wings on the shanks. An associate of mine has one with them though, and he uses it as his primary tillage tool. He says the wings work great for tearing out alfalfa.


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## haystax (Jul 24, 2010)

The wings seem to make it more difficult to penetrate tight unworked ground. Need to play with it next time. Need a bigger tractor too! Trying to decide what route to take on another tractor. Anything that's good for our deep age is a little big for big baler and especially every other hay tool


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

If we are letting the field lay over winter for a spring plant, we pulled a 16' offset disk deep as it would go. If we wanted to plant immediately, we would disk twice with the second pass at a 45 degree angle, roll it with the cultipacker, drill, then roll it with the cultipacker again but with teeth up. If the disking got the ground mellow enough, we would pull our Feurst harrow (chain link style) before the drill. We always rolled the ground afterwards.


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## Texasmark (Dec 20, 2011)

I use a spike toothed harrow. Had an old JD batwing that worked good and now that I have retired and downsized, I use one I bought from Small Farm Innovations. It's 7' and has the weight. Made out of 1/2" steel with a 2 7/8" steel pipe at each end with each piece independent and rolled around to make a mesh with a finger sticking down. The finger is sloped about 30 degrees so you can pull it in one direction for a smooth ride, or pull it from the other end if you want to uproot sod.

Mark


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