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Thanks for writing back. I continue to answer you here so that others might comment. To answer your questions; 1- Most of the european companies make a match special.The north american companies have pretty much let this die because it is a money loser for them. This wasn't always so as at one time all of the majors had specials available. As tractors got bigger it made no sense to build equip. no one bought. In antique class almost all of the plows are from Massey or Deere or McCormick etc. By antique I mean drag plows. Check out the website of the International Plowing match for pictures etc. If you search plowing on your web browser you should get a hit for that in the top 20 hits or so.The europeans still build these things as their lines of equip. are smaller and the publicity from winning at the World plowing match carries a lot of prestige. Kvernelands has won this about 20 times or so in the last 30 years.Fiskars and Overum make fine equip. too. 2- Kvernlands are no better or worse than any other for plugging. The better it plows on sod the more likely it is to plug under heavy trash conditions. We still have a Massey 3x 14" mounted for heavy trash or stubble conditions. To plow well in sod you need long,low twist boards and your coulters set very deep. I run mine as low as they will go without the arm dragging on the ground.Of couse this would plug like a son of a bitch in cornstalks.The requirements for trash are the opposite of sod . Since most people have to get over a lot of acres these days a large high frame plow with short boards that pulls easy is the way to go. Kvernlands and others like it do pull hard compared to the same size Deere or Massey.A good sod plow will maintain moldboard contact with the furrow all the way down to it's rest position. (turned over.) The friction of sliding over this long board is what makes the difference. 3- As to why they are so expensive; Most shortline high quality equip is expensive.The steels and materials found in a kvernlands are simply superior to mass produced equip. For example , did you know that all john deere plows now come with moldboards made by Kvernlands? Of course they are Deere design but the manufacturing process is patented so if they want the best you can get that is where they went.There are something like 17 separate layers of different steels in a kvernlands moldboard. Match specials are a good deal more expensive than even the pricey standard models because they are basically special order items that are assembled by hand with many very low volume parts. The same idea as a normal pickup being $20,000 or so but a fancy horse hauler special is more like $60,000. A good compromise is a european plow with corn boards. It will do both jobs fairly well but neither flawlessly. About your Allis plows plugging. I remember needing HOURS to unplug our allis plow if you didn't catch it as soon as it started to plug.
The low underbeam clearance was not happy with cornstalks.We took to chopping the stalks first if the ground wasn't too wet to use a bush hog or grass chopper. Go to www.kvernelands.com for info on the newest plows out there. They, are like their advertisng says, the best in the world. Just not cheap. Write back if you want . Perhaps if others are interested in this topic we could create a chat room on Yahoo or something. I invite comment by e-mail or posting here.
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