cultivating on side hills

I know that most people here do not cultivate any more with the advent of RR corn, soybeans and such. However we do vegetables and most of our place is on side hills from just a few percent grade to 10 maybe 15% grade. For those of you who have cultivated on side hills and can remember, would you be willing to share your advice as to what worked best for y6ou? Riding one brake, while steering up hill? which brake? 4x4 tractors best over 2x4? 3 point hitch cultivators or mid mounted? etc. Thank you.
 
Mid-mount works best by all means. In these parts we call it front mount. If you use a rear mount on steep side hills sometimes you can't get the front wheels offset far enough in the row to compensate for side hill drift in 30" rows. Wider rows than 30" works better with a rear mount on steep side hills.
 
Oh mid mount by all means! Really no problem then.

3pt you just have to rip up so e crop to learn, look forward, learn to creep the front wheel up to the top row so the rear is still on the row.

The big flat coulters do help keep the cultivator running straight, they don't correct for hills but they help some on the whole deal.

Paul
 
Helps to add a second coulter. I combined two cultivators to make the 8r30, so I used both coulters.
 
The question is what tractors do you have available . Then do you want to buy one , then one two or how many rows at the time are you wanting to do ? I use farmall and John Deere tractors in the field with front or mid-mount cultivator as tractor allows . My preference is a farmall super c for cultivating it let me see what I am doing but may lack power on a steep hill . If I were doing one row at the time I would use a farmall super a or a descendant of it .
 
One row tractor/cultivator set up works best and plenty of weight on the tractor front and rear to hold the tractor where you want it.Might also want to cultivate just one side of the row to start off with to keep dirt from covering the small plants as you'll need to stay farther away from the plants when doing the upper side.
 
Currently I have a 1949 cub with cultivators, a 1979 JD 2640, and a Kubota L3800 4x4. I am wrestling with the row spacing questions as we do many varieties of vegetables and the best spacing varies depending on the crop.

I have found that it easy to bury plants especially when they are small. Another thing I have found on row spacing is that the Kubota is very limited in your wheel spacing and thus in what spacing you can use. 24 inch works and allows for two rows at a time but, this then means cultivating two rows at a time with the cub. The JD is too big even though the wheel spacing is variable.

If I plant at 30 inch spacing it leaves the rows almost in the tire tracks of the Kubota so, 24 works a wee bit better for the planting. I can move the rear wheels of the Kubota out a couple inches per side but, that's it. I guess I won't know if it makes enough of a difference until I try it. The front wheels are stuck where they are. I could use one row planter and plant 48 inch row spacing but, that is lots of wasted space in betwixt although it makes cultivating easier.

I have noticed all the videos on you- tube that have to do with cultivating all happen on table top flat ground. I was beginning to think that we are the only idgets trying to cultivate on hillsides. Not sure what will work but, I am trying different setups and seeking advice. Thanks for all the answers.
 
Dr I think the cub will struggle with 2 rows , that said why can't you plant and cultivate with the cub that would eliminate the row spacing questions with the kubota. You maybe able to consider sealing tractors to get one that better suits what you are doing , I have a,d,c,h,m,supers and 100,400,240,340,460,560 row crops with cultivators 1,2,3,4,6 row setups , I know 3 is odd but you sometimes do what works in your application.
 

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