When it comes to incorporating cover crops...

aarolar · Apr 9, 2013

Does a rotary tiller do as good as a turn plow and what are the plusses and negatives of each? Application is small scale vegetable farming in sandy loam.

Brendon-KS · Apr 9, 2013

Tillers can do a great job of chopping up cover
crops and mixing them with the soil whereas the
moldboard plow leaves it in a layer. BUT, they can
also tangle miserably if the tines are poorly
designed or if the cover crop is viney. Doing this
kind of work requires slow gears, less than 1 mph.
You didn't indicate what kind of tractor you're
using but many vintage tractors cannot travel slow
enough in first gear for heavy tilling. With old
tractors the plow and disk typically work better.

aarolar · Apr 9, 2013

I have at my disposal a 5030 Ford with FEL, 35 Ferguson and small yanmar tractor. The tiller is a higher end unit not a box store brand.

Bret4207 · Apr 11, 2013

IME, if your tiller is a good unit and can be set an inch or 1.5" deep it will do a good job. You want your cover crop or "green manure" up in the top layer. With moldboard plows you would need to "skim plow" at about the same depth, something no easily done with a tractor plow. Much deeper than that and you end up doing more harm than good, on my soils at least.

When it comes to incorporating cover crops...

aarolar

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Brendon-KS

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aarolar

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Bret4207

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