disk vs tilling

[easports]

I’m working on two areas this year for food plots. One is grass area that I want to turn into a food plot and the second is a current plot that I want to expand. I cut the grass as low as possible and now want to turn the ground over. This is the first year I have accessibility to tractor and a disk. Is the disk enough to tear up the grass and ground to start the plot or should I look a renting a tiller attachment for the tractor? What do you think?

[motorbreaker]

Your going to have to disc the ground. A tiller wont be any good unless you disc first.
If a disc is all you have, You will have to go over the ground a few times to smoth it out
It depends on the soil your working with.

[gunther89]

It might depend on how big the disk is as well. Last year we did a small turnip plot in a pasture which had been a pasture for over 30 years. It took us a few rounds before we were getting dirt and after awhile we had all dirt and you couldn't see any grass in it. This year we added on to that plot with planting 1 acre of beans and we used a different disk which was a tad lighter and we spent over an hour disking it up and we had some grass chunks in it. For the most part it looked decent. The beans still turned out well.

[jamie sensenbrenner]

I'd apply round up to the grass first. Let it sit for a week. Mow it down then disc it up.

[280bst]

I put in Spring and Fall Food plots for myself and other people I rarely use a Disc. My steps if in a field cut it poison it then after the veg. dies I use a All Purpose Plow to really break it up [couple of feet deep] then I use my 5ft. tiller to really bust it up and smooth it out. If it is a clear space in the woods I generally just have to use the all purpose plow don't really want hang the tiller on roots or what ever is in there. Sometimes you may have to cut and poison same as a open field. Of course what works for me may not work for you.

[ranwin33]

Kill everything with Roundup then burn it if you can, give it a light disking, wait a couple of weeks and kill it again.

We have put in food plots with a pull behind ATV disk and they come out just fine. Planting clover or other small seed perrinials doesn't require much ground breakup. Matter of fact all you really need is some slits in the soil, that is why veritcutters work in yards. The main thing is to get to bare soil.

But as the proud owner of a new tractor with a 6 foot tiller on the back, I can tell you a tiller will work just fine. I used ours on ground that hadn't been turned in the last 20 years, had cattle on it for the past several, and was pretty pugged up in some places. The tiller made short work of it.

Ideally plowing and getting good soil turn over would be preferred, but since this is a food plot on not a crop field for production you can get by with less work and still have something productive.