Tips for Taming a Wet Field

I manage a field that has been hay for about 10 years and was corn for the previous 50 years. It has always been a notoriously wet field, however more than managable. This year we"ve had above average rainfall and when I recently cut the hay I made some serious ruts in quite a few spots. Only one corner I really dug up mud, the rest are just ruts.

My question is, are the ruts going to be something I just have to deal with in the future?

Is there some way of smoothing them out after the hay is baled? Or is my last option to harrow the whole field and start over? If so, can that be done this fall so I don"t lose next years crop?

As always I appreciate any advice. Thank you




Hold the sarcasm
 
Are there any tiling machines available for hire in the NE?

Sounds like this field is a prime candidate for drainage tile.

It maybe costly but it is well worth it.

Gary
 
If you have a spot to surface drain it to, like a nearby stream, take a single shank subsoiler, and make a pass, aiming down hill toward the stream. Hook up a plow, and plow a dead furrow over that subsoiler row. I have a piece of equipment, that tames ruts real fast, its called a harley rake, and it is widely used in the landscape industry. Though mine is mounted to a rubber track loader, they do make 3 point versions, available at rental yards.
Harley Rake
 
Drainage tile would be the best option but - Here in New England "The land of field stone" he may not be able to get it deep enough.
 
We had the same problem again this year. I've not found a good solution, many of the areas are only dry enough to hay in august and I can't drive a tractor on them the rest of the year.

I'm putting in some tile I think. BTW tile plows don't work up here, too rocky, have to use excavator or backhoe and take creative lines around the big stuff.
 
Tile drain it if you can afford to. That ~should~ get rid of the water. As far as the ruts go... moldboard is about the only way I know of to get rid of them.
If you didn't dig up much mud then you probably don't have very bad ruts... at least compared to what I deal with at times.
Just work with the ruts instead of trying to cross them and you'll hardly notice them anyhow.

Rod
 
When you think about it, for 50 year of the last 60 it was corn, with equipment just a bit lighter than stuff nowdays, and it must have done well, soaking up deep moisture all summer. Hay doesn't use all that underground dampness, and your haying equipment don't like it either. Yes discing now is fine, or a field cultivator, atleast over the ruts will get them leveled out naturally by next summer- but if you can plant corn again, I bet you won't regret it.
 
Likely can't tile something that's been in grass the previous 10 years - be called a 'wetlands' in my state & can't drain it.

As Allan said, you can disk it some in the dry period, will help a lot. The guy spraying beans drove through my wet grass area a few years ago, left some nice ruts the full length of it. Grrrr.

--->Paul
 
We have learned to stay out of wet spots where you create ruts. The little bit of hay that you get from these areas is not worth the ruts you have to live with afterwards. Maybe the next time you cut the field it will be dry enough to drive right through it.
 
We deal with the same problem on occasion, depending on rainfall, fields adjacent to wetlands, varying times of drying weather etc.

I would agree with Allen, just don't try it until it dries, if not this fall, you may have to wait until spring. It may be possible to over seed, check your PH, fertility, and address same, being you are in there already.

Another tactic that I use is to surface drain it, if its trapped water, best thing you can do is to get it to run off. If the affected areas are surrounded by drier ground, often times using a loader bucket, I can flatten the areas, even if I run through it, ideally you try to reach in from dry ground, but even if wet, you can even things out so that water will run off in some cases, instead of letting it get trapped. Ruts become problems because they hold water and make surrounding areas wet. The philosophy in doing this is to carefully work your way out and do so with minimal passes or tracking through it. Not for everyone, can easily make a mess too LOL!!!

Now if you are talking large expansive wet areas or its just inundated end to end, you obviously can't go out there with wheeled or track type tractors. I've always had good luck doing this in smaller areas, it always looks worse than it is. Once I've flattened or minimized the ruts, I just leave it be, sometimes patch-seed if needed, but clump grasses like orchard, timothy, (which is or is not clump, I forget) always seems to come back and you won't see any disturbance. What I don't like about not seeding is that undesirable seed or what have you now may have a great spot to get a foothold in a particular field. Not too many kinds of weeds will invade orchard grass, milkweed, and 2 others I have seen here in a field of it that has been sod since the late 60's, golden rod can take over if the field is not cut for several years, I've seen new stands planted, cut for a few years, beautiful stands too, then left idle, right back to golden rod, like if you planted it. Funny thing about that is, often times nothing but goldenrod grows.

Many people may disagree, fooling in the mud or a wet field can be a total waste of time, all depends on the soil, moisture, access, experience, equipment and underfoot conditions, some places top soils are deep, then clay and so on, nothing good to bear on, that is when tractors and equipment get buried easily, just making a bigger mess and more work. Some places you may have 1 or 2 passes before the water pumps up and that's it, so you have to make it count.

My experience with working in these conditions comes from being a dozer operator, and or other earthmoving equipment full time for several years. One of the most common tasks to perform was working in wet conditions, and keeping the site or work areas well drained. Always on the surface, getting rid of ruts, ponding areas etc., difference here is site work jobs are mostly dirt, it requires a little more attention if you are fooling with it in grass and trying to minimize tire and rut disturbances like you mention. As a dozer operator, you learn quickly how to deal with wet conditions, some you can work, some you may lose a tractor into deep suction/mud, and sometimes, you may hit something unforseen, I did it with a D8K once, traveling from one work area to another in a 100 acre flat field being converted to a subdivision, place could have been a landing strip, they raised sod over the next hedge row. The D8K, just sunk on one side, trapped water, well thats a big ole heavy crawler, surface did not look any different.

My inclination would be to use a loader if I could get near it and its not deep organic/non bearing soils, flatten and leave til spring, spot or patch seed, or wait til spring and it dries, disk the effected areas, cultipack, seed, then pack again, if you seed then pack, might be too deep for the seed.

One of the reasons we would try to avoid replanting a decent stand of hay grasses is all the work to do so, lots of rocks in the soil around here, its nice when you don't have to do tillage and bring them up, then deal with removing them.
 
Forgot to mention that what the others said, drain tile, using a subsoiler to direct water out is usually a good solution when you have trapped water, though tile may cost you, it works, subsoiler can work if you can maintain pitch or slope, handy implment to have, that and a 1 bottom plow for this, I have both, and sometimes use them for the same purpose. Its great to see that water finally run off.
 
All I've done for the last 25 years is like Billy in NY says, back drag it with the loader bucket. It takes most of the rut out, and after a year you don't even know where the ruts were.
 
Great post Billy thanks for the info.
I too am experienced with heavy machinery, I think I"ll try taking the loader and back blading the bad ruts. Maybe once the hay is picked up and the ground has tightened up a bit I can run over some of the less severe ruts to see if I can flatten them out.

The story regarding the D8K was something else. I know those K dozers had a lot heavier front than the older H models.

Appreciate all the help folks
 
(quoted from post at 15:40:45 10/07/11) Great post Billy thanks for the info.
I too am experienced with heavy machinery, I think I"ll try taking the loader and back blading the bad ruts. Maybe once the hay is picked up and the ground has tightened up a bit I can run over some of the less severe ruts to see if I can flatten them out.

The story regarding the D8K was something else. I know those K dozers had a lot heavier front than the older H models.

Appreciate all the help folks
E farmer, Do I remember correctly that you are in central NH?
 
Working in the dirt with the excavation equipment and related experience is very helpful in other areas, seems like I've spent half my life just making water run, where something or someone stopped the drainage from working. Farmer I used to help always liked field work to be neatly done, I fixed quite a few corn fields in the spring from the last harvest, big ole combine ruts, he's got a 6620 JD beefed up with larger tires, and rear axle drive from a 7000 series, thing will make quite the ruts, got stuck at my place once in trapped water.

I was surprised that day when moving that D8 across the field to the next area being stripped, It sunk on one side so fast, that was it, no need to even try and get it out, we had a new 350L Cat excavator on the site, made short work of digging it out, though we all pondered what to do, while looking it over as it was coffee time. Somewhere I have a photo of me on it, spent a year on that particular one. The 4bbl ripper on it adds some weight too, we had 18 machines on that job, 1000 gallons of fuel a day, scrapers were always getting stuck, bad time of year they made us work in, only time I ever got a crawler good n stuck !
 

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