To harrow or to roll?

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rolsterlady

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Basically, i rent a 4 acre field which i keep my 3 horses on. It is very rutted after the winter, and i'm not sure whether it would be best to get it harrowed or rolled..

We hardly have any grass after the winter, but half of the field has been resting for the past month and there is some new grass sprouting up in there. The field is really compacted and hasn't had any maintenence for the past 3 years, so am i right in thinking harrowing would be the best option? Would this help the grass to grow as it would loosen up the surface?

I am not fortunate enough to have a spare field, so can't rest the whole field after having it rolled/harrowed. How long is recommended for horses to stay off it after rolling/harrowing?

Any advice would be welcomed please! Thank you :)
 
Hi, my fields get very rutted from the winter and I was advised to harrow rather than roll. Particulary as drainage isn't great and rolling prevents water from draining through. Harrowing also helps with new grass growth. One of my fields gets seriously trashed but with a few harrows it evens out and then the horses flatten it over. You can turn horses straight out after being harrowed/rolled but mine is that bad i rest it for a while as there's no grass in it, just churned mud after winter! It recovers really well though.
 
Forgot to say, during the summer my horses are out in field whilst it's being harrowed! It's only if it's been sprayed/fertilised that you need to keep them off :)
 
We're different (wouldn't you know it?!) as we roll and then harrow. The reason for this is we're on clay so it holds the water but it also dries out very quickly; we have 2 or 3 days to do it else it's too late as it's baked like concrete; we also have butts and renes in two fields which mean hoof marks go deep in places and if we harrowed first, the sods sticking up on the top of the slopes would get ripped out and make even more mess but as we roll it looks a lot better then we'll harrow a few days later then roll again. Seems to work a lot better for us than harrowing first but we are lucky that we have our own machinery and aren't restricted that way.
 
In your case ,I would harrow then roll ,but you must do both in fairly close succesion. Harrowing will help level the ruts but loosen and expose a lot of grass roots. Subsequent rolling will further level the field and consolidate the roots again.
 
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