Re: Plow or chisel 7 acres of hard no-till

Posted by Billy NY on September 02, 2006 at 10:21:38 from (152.163.100.74):

In Reply to: Plow or chisel 7 acres of hard no-till posted by Jd 730 part-time farmer on September 02, 2006 at 07:32:50:

Some of the soils around here, not all, can become compacted, root bound from grasses etc. I've pulled the 2 bottom through areas that had heavy grass roots, tree roots, and also some former large vegetable garden areas, and boy did the tough areas really ask an awful lot of the old ford 850. The easier areas, some which had not been turned in a while, flipped right over, making it a much more enjoyable ride !

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.

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