I recently put 3 ton/acre down on some pasture ground. Below I will post a picture. I don't know about other areas but in WI most lime is applied in the fall with a very large dump truck with a spreader as shown.

Unless it is VERY dry and maybe even then, a fully loaded large 10 wheel dump truck driving back and forth over your fields has the potential to cause some deep compaction problems. I asked the driver to spread as wide as possible to eliminate at least a couple passes across the field but generally I try to put enough down at one time to last a couple years. I don't want that dump truck driving across my fields every year.

There was a time this summer when it was very dry and the cattle had just been moved out of some pasture and it seemed like a good time to spread. That is one very heavy truck on basically highway tires.

As far as incorporation goes, I am more in the leave it on the surface point of view at least up to about 4 ton/a. At or above that I have used a drag to incorporate the lime into about the top 1 to 1.5". I will attach a picture of the type drag I have used. Any pass across the field is going to cause compaction. I have found in my high clay soils that minimizing tire traffic in the field is very important.

Lime is one of those things that has a lot of local factors influencing the choice of how much and incorporation vs leave it on the surface.  I think we here need to be aware of the fact that there are many differences in soils climate etc between "here" and "there". jmho.

Jim at Dawn

Here are some photos. 

(Lime Spreading 08-02-07_IMG_0005_small.JPG)

(Lime Spreading 08-02-07_IMG_0001_small.JPG)

(pasture%20harrow3.jpg)

Lime Spreading 08-02-07_IMG_0005_small.JPG (35KB - 148 downloads)

Lime Spreading 08-02-07_IMG_0001_small.JPG (45KB - 155 downloads)

pasture%20harrow3.jpg (17KB - 180 downloads)