Soil surgeon

Taylorlambert · Feb 1, 2019

I had an midwestern farmer tell me about a soil surgeon implement, I?ve looked ove you tube and this site and haven?t seen a good picture. I was interested in one or building one to use on my truck patch said it was a sled like device. Does anyone have any pics of the teeth or what it does ion field.

hiredman56 · Feb 1, 2019

Pans that you drag behind the tractor. Add more dirt for more soil compaction. Also had knives every 8 inches or so that went down a few inches. Local farmer swore by it ahead of alfalfa.

paul · Feb 1, 2019

Was t one pictured on this site a few weeks ago? Few of us knew what it was. Can?t remeber which forum or who posted it.

Paul

Adirondack case guy · Feb 2, 2019

I remember that pic. and discussion also. I still fail to see what real value the implement had. It couldn't have had much or everyone would be using them or something similar.
Loren

Leroy · Feb 2, 2019

Yes there was. And they were made in the pan style but it was to put weight on for the knives to cut thru HARD plowed ground that was plowed when the soil turned to like chunks of concrete. Then there was the style that instead of the pan had a channel iron 3" frame that the knives bolted onto. The harowgater prety muched replaced the soil surgen as it had enought weight behind the big tractors to push those teeth into the hard ground and pull them to break up the soil. Soil surgen for use in hard clay in pan style, the channel iron type would work in a softer soil that did not crust so bad. Have had times when plow with good sharp shares would not go in for 50-100' after you droped it to start a new round. And when the plow would go in finally was big hard chunks. That was the conditions for the pan type soil surgen. I had a about 8' channel type unit that the teeth were mostly gon or shot when I got it and just used it as drag to smooth gravel drive after grading it. I could draw out what the shape of the knives were but no way to post it.

J. Schwiebert · Feb 2, 2019

Around here in Northwest Ohio I would say that 25 to 30% of the farmers had one and those farmers swore by them. Times change and now especially with no till they are not used anymore.

JD Seller · Feb 2, 2019

We had a set of them years ago. Two 4 foot wide pieces bolted together to make it 8 foot wide. With a lot of weight they would break up clods. A cultimulcher did a much better job and is what we replaced the soil surgeon with.

Here is a picture of one section being pulled upside down by a team of horses. I do not think these where old enough to have been used/sold during the horse drawn era. The work better with speed that horses could not work at.

paul · Feb 2, 2019

Like, the fall of 2012 here. We have heavy ground, lot of yellow clay. Very wet area most years. It was wet in spring, we mudded in the planting as often happens. july it stoped raining and never rained again. Got hot and the clay baked. Compacted like that, it baked like concrete.

Come late fall and you couldn?t get a plow in the ground. Even set right and new shares, get to the heavy clay low spots in the field and the plow would just ride out of the ground.

They found Wilsheck disks, big very heavy disk brand, was about the only thing heavy and strong enough to work that ground. They sold a ton of them that year.

Since then, not many have used those disks again, they all moved out of the area. As you know, a disk and wet clay is a really bad thing, and we typically have wet falls not dry......

I got a old but good Glencoe Soil Saver chisel plow for 2013, it was able to penetrate and break up the compacted clay spots better than the plow did. I also got tile installed in some of the worst fields so I?m not muddling in a crop quite as often/ badly.

Has made a lot of difference.

Paul

oleclint · Feb 6, 2019

That is a good pic to show the knives. Dad and I each had one. His was two three ft. sections bolted together, He pulled it with a Case CC. If the pans were loaded full it was a nice load for the CC .Mine was three four ft. sections bolted together . Pulled it with a M-M 'U'. He bought his new in the late 40 s, mine latter. A few yrs latter ,Soil Serg. came with a 12 wheeled model, like a wheel disk. They worked very good for us.

Soil surgeon

Taylorlambert

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hiredman56

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paul

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Adirondack case guy

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Leroy

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J. Schwiebert

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JD Seller

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paul

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oleclint

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