Plow or chisel 7 acres of hard no-till

Here are my options:
I have a JD 730D with 3 point putting out 59 HP, tires are loaded.
I have a 3 point 3 x 16" F125 plow.
-OR-
I have a 3 point 9 shank chisel plow.

Would I be better to use the chisel or the plow to get the best depth and do the best job. If I chisel, I would have to take off 4 of the shanks, so that I could go deep enough. With the 5 shanks, I would chisel the soil twice to get good coverage. If I plow, I would set it as deep as the plow would handle (havent plowed with it, how deep can it handle?)

This land is currently in wheat straw.
What would you do?
Thanks

The best time to do pan breaking is when it is dry,
that way it shatters the hard pan , if do when it
is wet the groud just lays back down and seals
up again.

Rotory mow the wheat stubble first so it will be easy to turn under when you plow it, do the
subsoiling and wait for rain , then plow ,it will
work well.

george

Plow pan (hard pan) compaction lies directly below the normal tillage depth. It develops when the depth of tillage is the same from year to year. Your chisel plow would fix this.

Subsoil compaction occurs just below the depth of tillage and is the result of implements/tractors having an axle load of over 5 tons. This is hard to get rid of and will require the area to be "subsoiled or ripped". If this is your problem hire it done and then your 730 will have the power to handle "it"s" future compaction issues.

Kinda like Tractor vet was saying, an M can"t solve the problems a 806 makes.

Now with that in mind, and knowing the sublayers of the soil may be compacted, I would think the best machine suited for this would be a crawler with appropriate length rippers ( same as a subsoiler, but much heavier ). I used to run D-8's with the massive single shank, double barrel ( 4 hyd. cylinders )in everything from rock, heavy frost, ag land, shale etc. even in 3-4 feet of heavy frost, it did not take much effort.

A smaller crawler with tool bar set up like the old caterpillars had or something more recent with multi shank rippers, (4 or 5 would be ideal ) set up for the correct depth, would really make short work of fracturing the compacted layers. This would certainly avoid hammering ones tractor and get the job done as desired if the sub layer compaction is an issue. Even with a single shank, it would not take long to fracture 7 acres with a crawler. But in consideration of other things, is one available in the area for hire, and is the expense affordable, sure would be nice if it was.

I've always found it interesting how they deal with this in the old orchards out in California, I see they still use crawlers for a variety of things, but seeing the photos of D-9's with rippers breaking up old root structure, fracturing the sublayers, and some of the other large implements really puts some perspective on how those soils bind together so tightly, don't think they have much choice as far as how to deal with it out there.

You might think about selling the 7 acres? :>)

I'm with the other guys, I just don't think you have a big enough plow/tractor to crack it. Try pulling 2 or 3 chisel shanks 'cause ya gotta get deep.

I was clear down in 3rd gear with this mess on the last day of March and it worked the snot out of my 100 hp tractor.

Allan

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If you need to fix compaction, you need to go deep, fast, and you need a lot of hp to do it.

The plow is too big, and a plow is only designed to go 8 inches deep. So it won't work on 2 counts. Not worth the bother to try.

The chisel plow is the tool to use. you want to make 1 pass, not 2, and you need to go deep - 10 - 12", not 2 shallow passes (2nd pass won't work well as the surface is loose - no traction to get through the hardpan). You need the shattering process of one deep fast pass. You need to travel a bit faster rather than slow - the springs need to get to shattering the hard pan. You need about 25hp per shank.

If you have to use that tractor, you will end up with 2 shanks on the chisel, drive fast & hang on.

Any other options you list will not give you much result. You don't have enough hp.

--->Paul