Any used a "sub soil lifter" on their field?

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now_loves_mares

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The farmer that rolls my field etc called this morning to say that a guy is coming to do a neighbours field with this machine. It was early :rolleyes: so I wasn't fully paying attention, but I think it basically loosens the subsoil to aid drainage - we are on heavy heavy clay here and my field, at least the top part near the gate, is like a bog pretty much all year round. (Although I have to say, even my field is bone dry just now, which I am :D:D about!!)

Just wandered if anyone had any experience with it? The man has been doing lots of horse grazing recently. I can't quite envisage how it's going to work. It's not going to be too expensive as I won't get the whole field done, but thought it was worth a try.:confused:

(seems a shame to be thinking about winter I know, but the last two summers up here it's started raining again in June and barely stopped :mad: )
 
don't really know enough about it to advise but I would call the farmer back and quiz him, he is probably the best person to give you the in and outs of it and how beneficial it will be. Having previously had clay soil I would have given anything to have had it improved for winter
 
My field floods badly and we were advised to get it mole ploughed to break up the soil underneath to allow better drainage. Well, it has been a disaster, the field look like it had been ploughed, with ridges where the mole bit went in and if a horse stood on the ridge it fell into the bottom of the groove (fetlock deep) so you couldn't ride in the field because if you didn't fall in the grooves, you tripped over them. It was done last autumn and it was roled earlier this year but it is still too bumpy to ride on. It did still flood but went down slightly faster.
 
Thanks both. Have done some googling which reminded me he called it a sward lifter. Not sure if that's the same as a mole plough? However to be honest, I can't ride in my field anyway as it's always fetlock deep in holes caused by my horses, so that doesn't sound any worse than the problem I currently have. I lose so many shoes when it's wet :(

Will keep googling and see what else I find out :rolleyes:
 
Ah, now I get you. Sward lifting is an improved method of mole draining - it avoids the furrows creating, opens up the soil and removes dead grass, thus helping good root structure to establish:)
 
My OH has a sub soiler/mole plough and he uses it to aid drainage and put hoses in the ground. The soil round here is heavy clay also and the farm where my pony is has springs popping up all over the place, the sub-soiler helps to re-route them to the nearest ditch.

I cannot say that the OH's sub-soiler leaves much of a furrow, certainly not one you could fall into and if you pasture is already fairly rough, you've got nothing to lose.
 
For grass land its important to have a sub soiler/mole plough with a disc culture infront of the leg so that it cuts through the turf/topsoil and not rips through! i friend has a 3 legged one set up for grassland that has disc cuttings infront of the leg and a spring loaded roller at the back to neatly put the turf back down> does a fantastic job on compacted fields.
 
http://www.opico.co.uk/agmac/grassland-subsoiler/grassland-subsoiler.html

This is what he had. Field looks better, there are definite cuts in the grass, but no sign of furrows/ridges or anything. In a couple of places there are lifted clods, but maybe just at the start of the odd row, apart from that it looks better already and that's before the rain.

So fingers crossed ;)
 
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