Post harvest clean-up of low spots

[farmaholic]

What do you do?
Spray it . Mow and forget it. Swath and burn it. Swath and run it through a combine. Disc it. Try to burn it the way it is. Verticle till it. A combination of the above. Let it go and say Eff it.

Cattails are the worst things to manage. Some hay sloughs have the hay drowned out from too much water for too many years. Cattails taking over even in places that were seedable before the wet spell.

[biglentil]

heavy harrow n burn, multiple passes

[newguy]

Finally the wet flooded land can be farmed again once cleaned up.I hope to swath and bale then burn bales in first snow.Would like to spray after baled but would have to dump bales out of the way or tie the weed bales and move them.Best way to get trash off other than burning the whole thing.If you burn it all no spraying till spring.Land will be back in crop insurance acres for next year if you clean up this fall.

[farming101]

Depends on the number of low spots. If you have just a few, like under a hundred, it may be feasible to swath, harrow and burn. Trying to start cattail piles on fire on a wet fall morning doesn't work too good.

We swath. After you get stuck once, you stay out of places that will be too wet next year anyway. If you get stuck with the combine while combining cattails, you will be tempted to quit altogether.
Then, we just harrow the cattails and drag them all over the field. Makes a few piles but they can be burnt when conditions are right. Its the only way we would ever get done.

[Partners]

The dry spots..we used a Versatile off set disk..Black behind..Hate burning..

[jamesb]

all of the above. but my preferred method is mowing with shulte. It leave the best seed bed for next year IMO.

[farmaholic]

The amount of material cattails produce almost makes burning or mowing before tillage necessary. Can they be vertical tilled effectively?

Man is there a snowstorm of seeds when they get disturbed.

[freewheat]

For me, I am actually going to summerfallow my worst half next year. It is all full of water, so there is nothing that can be done now, water running slough to slough. A decades of cattail material to get rid of.

We are gunna use a hoe to drain the water off next year, and then when it dries enough, follow with a sc****r to make it farmable throughout.

This is a drastic move for me. I hate summerfallow and tillage, but I think there is no other way to get the land back.

[farmaholic]

As much as i hate to admit this, our common practice is to swath then run it through the combine, expensive in my eyes. Mowing leaves the residue in bigger pieces and sometimes windrows it.

There isn't a right answer to the dilemma. I guess it depends on the equipment at your disposal and goals.

Where sod has developed after years of wet conditions and even after spraying it dead, tillage may be necessary to prepare a half decent seedbed.

Sometimes the whole practice is futile and we never get it seeded anyway, but you always hope. That being said, should it be left as "habitat"?

[sumdumguy]

Get de plane and spray every inch, pile up the residue in the low spots with a cat and burn it. Then till. In many other countries that's how it's done. Each to his own, guess next year we can compare notes.

[biglentil]

Heavy harrow and drop piles, ruts are gone, residue gone, looks like a million bucks after simple. Your not going to kill your combine or your time.

[furrowtickler]

We use a case turbo till , one pass - done , ready for seeding if not under water .

[hobbyfrmr]

Freewheat,

Why not plant straight oats, or oat pea mix as a green feed for your livestock? The crop should draw out moisture. Plant it early instead of late, you will cut weeds and crops. You will have feed for animals, plenty of time for tillage and even if you trample it with the hoe, it doesn't matter so much, it's just green feed.