Rollover plow ?

Neighbor of mine had the same setup. He said it was heavier than a load of taters and tugged a little hard.

But, boy! Could he ever cover the real estate with the thing hooked behind that 10!

Allan

I've never laid eyes on an Oliver plow. I've heard that they are the first cousin to a Massey?

Thanks,

Allan

There are a quite a few Oliver plows around Michigan, but not many Massey plows. My dad had a Massey Ferguson 3 bottom 3-point plow (not a roll over). 2 things stick out in my memory about that plow. It had a 2 piece plow point and every plow of same model I came across had the Massey Ferguson decal on upside down!
If my digital camera wasn't broke I would post a pic of my Oliver plow.

Fred

It is kinda hard to explain unless you are familiar with flood irrigation. The land is so darned flat; ideally, it will have a slope of roughly 3' to a 1000 foot run.

As a consequence of this flat irrigation farming, the seedbed must almost totally level so that the water will follow the furrow from headland to drain-water as it should.

Therefore, when plowing, there can be no dead furrows, there can be no "holes" or “mounds” and there can be no "trash" left on the surface because these things would impede the flow of the water.

You need to either plow in both directions, or you must plow the whole entire farm, traveling in one direction only. In short, "normal" plows just do not work well in this environment.

I think John Deere originally came out with the dual-direction plows, then came the tumble plows and finally the spinners, or as you call 'em, the rollovers. They allow plowing in both directions without ever changing the 'throw direction' of the soil.

Also, and as a result of using these types of plows, we that are used to 'em think that the little one-way plows are the silliest thing ever dreamed up by mankind, because with the spinner, you can cover so much real estate faster and there is no lost motion from running back and forth across the headland. :>)

Allan

The boys in the Frankenmuth area of Michigan (the thumb as we call it) plow very flat land with conventional plows. The trick is they plow around a field like you would seed with a grain drill. They put the backfurrow in the middle of the field and the dead furrow ends up around the border of the field. Quite an art to get the field to come out right.

Yes Sir, that's is the way a lot of the dryland farmers do it here too.

Trouble is, it leaves four diagonal "turn rows" that have to be dealt with and this in turn leaves four diagnoal dead furrows.

To a wheat farmer, this doesn't raise much concern and they just farm over the top of them.

However, to a flood irrigation farmer, it means you would spend the summer on the end of an irrigation shovel trying to straighten that mess out because the water won't run.

Here's a picture of a fella in SE South Dakota using a one way high clearance plow, probably doing like you describe the boys up there do.

Allan

A conventional plow always throws soil to the right. A hillside plow lets you throw it to the left on the return trip.

I would guess that when a plow is in the ground, it's weight has nothing to do with the way it pulls.

Draft senses "tug" not weight.

If I'm wrong about this, someone please correct?

Thanks,

Allan