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Jim: I've had my fingers in the soil well over a half century. I remember once, wasn't quite ten years old, my dad was studying an unfamiliar field, trying to decide the best way to plow it to come up with a level seed bed. I've had that drilled in me since a kid, "moldboard plow was the first tool of levelling a field." I've never seen a field one didn't ocasionally make rut. I know some of these combine headers are flexable, but not quite flexable enough to dip into some the uneveness I've seen in notill fields. Those headers have got to be going over beans on the bottom of a significant number of plants. While I say that, there has also been a crowd come out of ag colleges in the 70s, 80s and 90s that could develop an obstacle course with moldboard plow. Friend of mine in Nova Scotia hosted a plow day. Bear in mind you could drive a Toyota or a Cadilac anywhere on his farm at 50 mph. I dropped by the day after the plow day. He had holes 2' deep. I said, "what are you going to do" His responce, " I think if I fabricate a levelling plank for my chisel plow, if that doesn't get it I'll have to fire up my old bulldozer. Part that amazes me many, many farms have land levellers today. Makes you sometimes wonder how our dad's kept these fields level with an old 30-40 hp row crop, 2-3 bottom trailer plow, drag disk and an old flat tooth spring tooth harrow. My dad always said if you can't drive a 59 Chevy sedan 50 mph on a field, someone screwed up on tillage. Now, do you ever remember any car that bottomed out easier than a 59 Chevy. I was at a farm event here in Middlesex Co., a group of farmers were discussing the use of V rippers and chisel plows. I've had little experience with these tillage tools, thus I listened closely. Two of these guy had been moldboard plowing and using chisel plow on headlands. Both were remarking how rough their headlands were becomming. One of the things that surprised me moving here from Nova Scotia was the number of rough fields in cash crop country, both tillage and non tillage. I haven't been on a lot of those fields, however if you watch a tractor from the road, not hard to pick the rough fields, and the percentage is much higher than I expected. Why some of those old New Brunswick lumberjacks don't have any rougher ride in a forestry skidder.
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