flying belgian

Well-known Member
I do custom organic farming for a neighbor down the road and am looking to get a rotary hoe for next year. There really is no difference from one brand to another, right? I am looking for a 15 or 20 ft.
 
Depends on the age. If it is a more modern one than JD. IH, M&W, all had good rotary hoes. Plus many short line ones. If your looking at old hoes then there were many that did not work very well.
 
While you're at it Mr. JD Seller, would you mind sharing with us your usage of such.

I have about everything else for soil management and have been toying with picking up a hoe since they show up at the local auction fairly often....usually 16 footers give or take (give mostly). If I got one I'd down size it to fit my retirement acreage. What I don't know is why/ how I'd benefit from it. I posted this question recently somewhere on the www but thought I'd take this opportunity to ask again here.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Mark, Not JD Seller but I will ask you some questions. What crops do you grow and what type of soil do you have? That can be the answer to your question as if it will work for you. No trash and corn or beans (could also guess cotton) that is just trying to break through a soil crust from rain on a clay type of soil, on a sandy loose soil no crust no use there. Then weeds Just a quarter inch tall they will pull out and not hurt the corn or bean plant. And a 2 section or 7' how was designed for 2 rows of 40" spacing. a 3 section or 10' will handle 3 40" or 4 30" rows. A standard 4 section was for 4 40" rows and then the newer ones that are not made in sections a 15' was for 6-30" rows while an 18' was fore 6 40" rows and the new style I understand will dig better than the old style that we loaded with concrete weight to get to penetrate the crusty soil, sometimes we would have to go over it a second time.
 
For corn, i strongly suggest NOT an IH 300. Not their best effort. It has "gangs" of the hoe wheels, which has poor penatration, and uneven. I have one that I use, and it kinda blows. And I bleed red very profusely.

A 181 or newer is the red model to get.

Almost any brand with individual mountings/down pressure springs per wheel works well.

Best of luck.
 
Texasmark!: There are several uses for a rotary hoe. These pictures are of the modern type of rotary hoe. There are two wheels on a walking beam on a spring loaded arm. So every two wheels can float/rock independently of each other and the neighboring wheels too. The second picture shows how the wheel/tip/spoon hits the ground straight and then flips as it comes out. You can see how with speed there is a lot of action at ground level.

1)The original usage was weed control. The rotary hoe worked because young weeds have shallower roots than planted corn. So the rotary hoe will flip out weeds and leave the majority of the corn unhurt. Also rotary hoe operation is at high speed. Especially compared to cultivating short crops.

2) If you have soybeans or corn that get rained on hard right after planting and then fast drying weather you can get a crust that is so hard the young seedlings can not penetrate up through the soil. If left alone corn seedlings will actually crook and grow down until the seedling runs out of energy to grow. In soybeans the sprout will actually break trying to break through the crust. So you can run a rotary hoe over the ground and break the crust so the seeds can emerge. This is the most common use around here now.

3) To the west of me the ground levels out pretty flat. The ground has a little sand in it. At the right stages high winds can pickup the sand and blow it across the rows of young corn/bean plants. The wind driven sand will actually cut the plants off at ground level. Even if not completely cut they will damage the plant enough it will be stunted. This can happen real fast. Usually after enough rain to mellow the ground out flat. The timing it real critical on this. The damage can be done is just a few hours time. So if you take a rotary hoe and run the rows skipping rows. Meaning is your running a 12 row planter you would do 12 rows and skip 24 rows and do 12 there. So you can cover a field pretty fast. The rotary hoe disturbs the surface enough that the wind will not follow the ground right at the surface. So it does not pick up the sand. The worked ground acts like a snow fence kind of. It greatly reduces the damage young plants get.

Those are the three most common uses of a rotary hoe in my area. They are a high speed tool. As fast as you can stay in the seat fast. The faster the better too. The wheels are more aggressive with speed. On a JD 4020 we would run in 6th or 7th gear if we could.

Caution anything you run across will be throw back at the tractor. My Grand father ran over a snake. The hoe pitched it right around his neck. LOL He about jumped off the tractor.
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Thanks. That leaves me out as I don't do row crops. Slow returning your reply but have been busy with other things lately.
 
Again Leroy, been busy and apologize for the sluggish reply.

1. Crops and soil. I have a hay patch that I plant every year in something like Sorghum-Sudan or Rye. I use a drill. Soil is Houston Black Clay and has to be worked on it's terms, not mine....rock hard or mud...gotta catch it in the transition region......helps being retired to be able to do that.

2. For soil breaking/cultivation I have a "thing" (I think TX. Jim knows the name of it) that is the Blackland's answer to a moldboard plow. The MB gums up but this thing has large rolling discs, like 30 inch in diameter and each only leaves a track of about 1' in width but deep, and rolls the sod like a MB.
Then there's the Offset which I use for a plow, 22" discs, 9" spacing, couple of JD 150# weights on it to help it dig
Disc harrow, with 4 Ford rear wheel weights atop it
JD cultivator with 10" sweeps
Newly acquired 3 pt roto tiller
Late model type link spike toothed harrow, not like the old JD fixed spike on a frame
Hay King Pasture Renovator for breaking up plow pan before I come back with one of the above implements
Old JD 8' articulating disc harrow that I welded all the discs straight and loaded it up with weights to aerate my Coastal Bermuda patch which I don't till.

I saw the hoes on numerous trips to the auction and always wondered what they were used for and in doing that would they be of any benefit to me. So I asked the question and it seems they won't.

Thanks for the reply.
 

Forgot to mention it yesterday. Thanks for the picture....worth a thousand words.

You on GPS or just have a "good eye" and "steady hand". Nice job. Seems any distraction would be disastrous.
 

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