Land management- will it recover by itself?

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ellis9905

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So as like many people (!) my fields are getting trashed, both by being so wet and by a serial fence walker- that combined by the wet has pretty much ploughed up my fields!

Some areas are about 8 inches of mud soup before getting down to any firm ground.

So I'm wondering will the land recover itself come spring or will it need work- if so what will need doing??

This is my first yr with fields like this :(
 
Roll and harrow come spring. It will recover but you will find weeds grow through the poached bits quicker than grass comes back. If you can afford to have it over seeded that would be ideal
 
I'm sure there are better qualified on here than me but I would have thought some sort of rolling/ re-seeding is going to be necessary if you want it to come back with sensible grass in a sensible time frame.
I'd have thought it will need a good rest as 8 inches will probably have destroyed all the grass root structure.
 
Do you have a separate winter field or is this the only field you have?

I usually fence off an area of my field for winter and keep a summer part. At the end of winter I move the horses onto the summer paddock then the winter one gets some tlc. This usually consists of resting for a while and waiting to see what happens, as soon as its dry enough (but not too dry) I roll it, sometimes the grass will come back through ok, sometimes there will be lots of weeds. If lots of weeds then I apply a herbicide then the grass can come through. If its really bad then I will also re-seed.

It may be worth getting a local farmer on side for help, advice and for small jobs
 
Harrow and then roll in spring. If you are haying in the field you should find the grass will self seed from this, but you risk weeds taking over if you don't hay, or if you're unlucky. I would spread some grass seed between harrowing and rolling if you don't hay.

We have never seeded, and have always hayed in the field, an area up to an acre gets trashed every winter and ALWAYS recovers. That said, the more rank areas they use as a toilet do get spoiled by docks, (with lots of knotweed, the rumex kind, not Japanese!) and pineapple weed. I would consider seeding this, although hopefully we'll put a school there someday soon :)
 
As above with regards to rolling and harrowing but have found that seeding can be hit and miss, we had one field that was just fertilised, no seed and it came back much better than the others so i would recommend fetilising with a safe fertiliser.
 
Wheels- fortunately the fence walker has now gone and the pony is sectioned off into a field that is least churned .

So the trashed fields are now empty and resting ( under the mud and water!!)

Thanks for advice :)
 
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