Plow and Disc vs Tiller, And plowing questions

lastcowboy32

Well-known Member
Good morning, good people.

So, we do mostly hay, and we have a full line of haying equipment. But, since we live on a well traveled road, we tinkered with a roadside stand and sweet corn last summer. It went well, and we want to do it again this year.

We do about five acres.

To do the corn, we have depended on a little agrarian "Triangular Trade" with some neighbors. One neighbor has horses and a field to bale, but no haying equipment. We put in their hay. They let us use their nice, 75HP, new, New Holland tractor and their seven foot tiller.

Another neighbor has a White "Plantair" 5400 corn planter, that he uses for deer food plots. We do some stuff for him, he lets us use his planter.

We do our corn organically, which means no fertilizer, other than manure. We also rotate every year to fresh sod to turn under for the extra boost of "fertilizer". (listen to me say "every year"...like we've been doing it forever...)

Anyway, the tiller takes three passes to break sod to a seedbed. Even after those three passes at 2 or 3 miles per hour (i.e. SUPER tedious), I'm not necessarily in love with the seedbed. The ground around here is clay, and tilling sod with a rototiller invariably ends up with cup-sized chunks of sod...almost no matter how many times you till.

I have seen a small, two bottom plow (no colters) and disc for sale locally.

For tractors, we have a Ford 3000 and a Ford 4000 (we also have a 2N...but I would rather not plow with that).

So... with heavy clay sod (especially sort of wet clay sod this year), is it better to just flip it over with a plow and then disc? As compared to rototilling?

Assuming that it is, that little two bottom plow is going to be very narrow, compared to either of my tractors. Is it going to be a bear to get it setup to track properly? Isn't one tire of the tractor supposed to ride in the previous deadfurrow?

I'll still do my neighbor's hay... but I was thinking that, if plowing was a better way to till soil, I would have a more efficient way of turning sod and then re-seeding last year's corn plot.

Thanks for any insights and opinions from experience.
 
I've been trying to learn how to farm for 40 years this year. I say trying to learn because never have I had the same experience attempting to do the same job
time after time, year after year.

A couple of years ago I bought a 6' 3 pt tiller from TSC. I'm in Houston Black (Heavy) clay. I have been doing the plow and disc and harrow thing for all of
those years. After having used the rototiller for a couple of years, I find it a great one pass implement. Problem with it is that you can't have any long
stemmed plants in your field. If so, bush hog first to chop them up then till in....they wrap around the shaft if you don't.

A tiller is a great one implement do all......pretty much.
 

We do brush hog and then finish mow before tilling; so any growth has been cut and mulched very well.

There is NO WAY that one pass will till this sod, even if I traveled at the lowest speed possible.
 

The follow on question, for me, should be, what about wet clay vs dry clay.

Last year, we didn't have any rain for about two weeks before I tilled, the clay was hard like pottery. Part of the reason that I needed three passes was that the tiller was practically bouncing off of the ground with the first pass. I really needed to set it shallow and go one way across the field... then I set a little deeper and went perpendicular to the first pass... then I set it full depth and went in the same direction as the first pass.

This year, we are getting rain just about every day for the last two months. The clay is very wet.

If I stick to the rototiller, is that going to work OK?
 
So if you are doing Organic, you are doing tillage.
The ultimate tillage tool ever built would be the
mouldboard plough. I have some clay ground to
farm as well, and it can be tricky to work with, no
question. I also did some market garden years ago,
and have some understanding of what you are
doing. This is how I would go about doing what you
are doing, my opinion from my experience. So after
you have taken off your hay on the ground where
you intend to grow your sweet corn for next year,
get out and plough it quick as you can after the hay
is off, even better right after a rain, ground will
plough easier. You need coulters on your plough
when Ploughing did. The coulter cuts the sod before
the plough point gets to it , making the furrows
smooth and turn even , not ripped and jagged.
After the ground has been ploughed, disc it down. I
would not worry about burying the manure with the
plough. Once your ground is worked down , put the
manure on and work it in with the cultivator or the
roto tiller, blending the manure was the soil. And
corn is a hungry crop and can handle more than
one coating of manure, just keep working it in. So
my point here really is , prepare next years plot late
summer early fall for next year. This is a small piece
of ground, I wouldn?t worry about over working it,
and leaving it bare over winter unless it is on the
side of a hill we?re it is sure to wash away.
 
(quoted from post at 09:29:16 05/28/19) So if you are doing Organic, you are doing tillage.
The ultimate tillage tool ever built would be the
mouldboard plough. I have some clay ground to
farm as well, and it can be tricky to work with, no
question. I also did some market garden years ago,
and have some understanding of what you are
doing. This is how I would go about doing what you
are doing, my opinion from my experience. So after
you have taken off your hay on the ground where
you intend to grow your sweet corn for next year,
get out and plough it quick as you can after the hay
is off, even better right after a rain, ground will
plough easier. You need coulters on your plough
when Ploughing did. The coulter cuts the sod before
the plough point gets to it , making the furrows
smooth and turn even , not ripped and jagged.
After the ground has been ploughed, disc it down. I
would not worry about burying the manure with the
plough. Once your ground is worked down , put the
manure on and work it in with the cultivator or the
roto tiller, blending the manure was the soil. And
corn is a hungry crop and can handle more than
one coating of manure, just keep working it in. So
my point here really is , prepare next years plot late
summer early fall for next year. This is a small piece
of ground, I wouldn?t worry about over working it,
and leaving it bare over winter unless it is on the
side of a hill we?re it is sure to wash away.

I actually really wanted to till the new spot last fall. I get what you're saying. Many of the Amish around here plow in the fall. My father used to plow in the fall.

And you're correct, it's not a side hill. It's a big, flat, hayfield, somewhere around 60 acres, of which, I'm just tilling a 5 acre patch in the middle of it; so nutrients aren't washing out of the field.

However, last fall was an epic mud season around here. People were combining corn and soybeans after the ground froze in January. I would never have been able to do any tillage.

This spring is turning out to be an extension of that.
 
I would disc it twice then plow then disc or you will
still have and probably will still have some sod
chunks
 
Grass in clay, sounds like my place. First year I tilled then used a landscape rake to rake the root clods into a pile. Let them die and dry out over the winter then was able to use the resulting dirt to fill in the low spots. This year I plowed it under in the fall and disk it this spring.

Didn't see much difference and not sure which was easier, probably plow/disk was less tractor time. I was trying to see what method resulted in less weeds. Think plowing won by a very slim margin.
 
Up here in Minnesota one would plow the sod under in late fall, let winter mellow it out (mostly froze solid and snow covered no erosion) and then disk it wait for weeds
to sprout then disk it maybe wait for weeds to sprout if time and harrow it and plant corn.

In a warmer climate things are different.

The tiller is an all in one, but slow, tool. It doesn?t let you do the weed sprouting delays, etc. it doesn?t go as deep as a plow for deep roots and it will pulverize the soil
very fine. (Well on hard sod as you are doing you probably need the several passes and it ends up doing the weed passes and so on....) At different times these are
pluses or minuses of the tool compared to what one wants to accomplish.

Paul
 
(quoted from post at 13:05:58 05/28/19) Up here in Minnesota one would plow the sod under in late fall, let winter mellow it out (mostly froze solid and snow covered no erosion) and then disk it wait for weeds
to sprout then disk it maybe wait for weeds to sprout if time and harrow it and plant corn.

In a warmer climate things are different.

The tiller is an all in one, but slow, tool. It doesn?t let you do the weed sprouting delays, etc. it doesn?t go as deep as a plow for deep roots and it will pulverize the soil
very fine. (Well on hard sod as you are doing you probably need the several passes and it ends up doing the weed passes and so on....) At different times these are
pluses or minuses of the tool compared to what one wants to accomplish.

Paul


All in all, since the tiller is "free", and I'm behind the eight-ball in the respect that I couldn't plow last fall.

I think that I'll stick with the tiller this year and look to transition in the fall. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to think that the best combination in my situation is to get my hands on a good little plow with colters, spread heavily with manure and then turn the land in the fall, let the frost break the clumps down some.

I bet that it would then till up beautifully in one pass with the tiller, since the sod is now upside down and not really in play.
 
You really don?t need to have coulters especially if
you have access to a tiller I plow lots of sod ground
and no coulters especially it will work even better if
you fall plow by spring it will be broke down quite a
bit .
cvphoto24687.jpg

The grass was 3 feet tall on this piece but the little
bit of grass sticking up helped ketch the winter snow
 
(quoted from post at 20:09:59 05/28/19) You really don?t need to have coulters especially if
you have access to a tiller I plow lots of sod ground
and no coulters especially it will work even better if
you fall plow by spring it will be broke down quite a
bit .
<img src="https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto24687.jpg">
The grass was 3 feet tall on this piece but the little
bit of grass sticking up helped ketch the winter snow

What a picture THAT is!
 
Without coulters you cannot do a clean job of plowing, if you try to plow at 1 & a haf times the plow was made to work you are going to get thar rough furrow no mater with or without coulters. You DO need coulters to get a decent job done. The reason most of the plows do not have them is that it was an extra not used plow and the used plow either had a coulter go bad or lost and plowed under so one was grabed off the extra plow to finnish. And without the coulter the shin or front edge of moldboard will wear twice as fast. The coulter will help you turn under the sod and if still trouble fasten an 8' long piece of no, 9 wire around coulter shank and that will turn the trash under unless you are trying to plow deeper than plow was designed to do. That deeper than designed to do is why on older plows you will see the back end bottom of the moldboard is razor sharp. If you can plow first then use the tiller and you should not have problems with clumps of sod. Plowing first then no need for tiller to be run over 3" deep. Years ago neighbor tried using just a tiller behind a MF 65, got by a few years before he died. The name of the township is CLAY. And for brick buildings they would just go out in a field and dig up the clay to make the bricks.
 
There is not a plow in this hole part of the country with a Coulter and there never has been . I think the rocks and sagebrush would have them broke off the first day . The only Coulter?s I?ve seen are in picture books
cvphoto24733.jpg
 
I plant a few acres of alfalfa every year.
Have disk then chisel then disk then run a
do-all over it at least 2 times maybe 3.
Then a cultipacker. Then sow then
cultipacker. All tools but chisel plow are
15 ft. Oh sprayed with roundup and 2,4,D.
First. Also have ran a 5 ft tiller on a
50hp. Compact tractor. Maybe 4 times At
2.5 mph. When its all over tiller may be
faster.
 
On my garden and truck patches that I tear up every year usually with a cover crop on them like Crimson Clover,I use a 3 pt JD tool that is basically a small scale chisel plow.The shanks are about 1 inch square and have a 360 degree curl to give them some springing ability.It'll tear the ground about a foot deep and really rips it usually run it like a checkerboard.When finished with that the tiller really goes in good and does a great job getting the soil ready to plant.Saves a lot of wear and tear on the tiller its fast and
cutting deep in the ground tears up the subsoil and which help plant roots grow deeper and will help hold moisture.
 

2-3 mph with a tiller is way to fast!
I have a 7 ft tiller I use behind my 4000 Ford, 1st gear low range is 1.3 mph and it takes minimum of 2 passes to get a decent job tilling our heavy sod ground, a 3rd pass will get me a good smooth well tilled seed bed around 6" deep with the skid shoes fully raised.
For small gardens I like a tiller over a plow and disc, for larger plots where you have room the maneuver it's a wash.
Tiller takes wider swath but is slower, plow only turns 28-32" per past but you can run faster, I over lap half the disc width for a better job and usually disc the ground twice so time involved is nearly the same ether way.

I tilled 12 acres for hay ground once, single pass was good enough for hay but the slow boring speed was maddening,
probably won't do it again.
 
(quoted from post at 08:14:01 05/30/19)
2-3 mph with a tiller is way to fast!
I have a 7 ft tiller I use behind my 4000 Ford, 1st gear low range is 1.3 mph and it takes minimum of 2 passes to get a decent job tilling our heavy sod ground, a 3rd pass will get me a good smooth well tilled seed bed around 6" deep with the skid shoes fully raised.
For small gardens I like a tiller over a plow and disc, for larger plots where you have room the maneuver it's a wash.
Tiller takes wider swath but is slower, plow only turns 28-32" per past but you can run faster, I over lap half the disc width for a better job and usually disc the ground twice so time involved is nearly the same ether way.

I tilled 12 acres for hay ground once, single pass was good enough for hay but the slow boring speed was maddening,
probably won't do it again.


The ground speed thing, I can relate to. When I borrowed my neighbor's tiller/tractor, the tractor had a digital ground speed readout. The ground speed is so slow that I had time to sit there and calculate how many feet per second I was going...then how many square feet per second that equated to... then how many acres per hour

I essentially sized the corn plot by counting minutes of tilling...
 

At 1.3 miles per hour, I get 54 minutes per acre with a 7 foot tiller.

Your 12 acre plot would have been a sunup-sundown job for just one pass.

But, as others (and yourself) have said. Plowing doesn't cover as wide of a path, and you have to disc/harrow...

So I guess it's a "pick your poison" type of proposition.
 
Gonna say nope! Course it depends on how wet. If you can get a handful, squeeze it and make a solid ball it's iffy....if wetter forget it It will just gum up the
works. If you try to get a hand full and have a rock (hard, dry clay), you bet....pretty noisy and dusty, but gets her done. If you work a field year after year fine
on a one pass thing. If you haven't worked the field for awhile then it will take more and you will have to play with the weather to get it to help you break it
up....like a shower or two between passes.
 
I have a Hay King brand Pasture Renovator. You can pull them up on the www and see what they are. In clay sod, aka grass growing on soil, the coulter does make a difference in getting a nice thin slice with minimum surface disturbance vs irregular clumps popping up randomly. Also, in maintaining a Coastal Bermuda patch the coulter slits the runners, making a new plant for each rooting spot of the runners and the subsoiling shanks slice the dirt so that nutrients and moisture can get down to the root zone and it does just what the name implies.....Renovates the pasture.

On usage, moldboards aren't used around here due to gumming up. The popular plow is the one way or second would be the offset, third would be the tandem disc used as a plow......large diameter discs, reasonably wide spacing and heavily weighted All three of these implements do their own sod slicing so no coulter is necessary.

I follow the renovator with either of the subjects of this post for my field prep.
 
"I tilled 12 acres for hay ground once, single pass was good enough for hay but the slow boring speed was maddening,

probably won't do it again. "

Gotta keep the faith. Grin Keep telling yourself that this job will be done in one pass....be patient......only one pass....... be patient.....etc. Grin
 
Some random thoughts:
When I was 16 I worked for a berry
farmer near Oregon City, OR.
One of the jobs I did was to Rotovate
between the rows of berries with a
Massey of some sort. 50 years and a lot
of jobs later that is still the most
BORING job I've ever had.
I plow gardens for my cousins and put in
deer plots every year. I use a 3000 and
2-16 plow in our rocky, clay loam soil.
It does a great job.
Remember, with a plow you are traveling
4? times as fast as you do with a tiller
so would guess you'd turn more acres
faster. Its a lot more fun too - once
you get your settings right.
Coulters are much more important when
plowing sod or opening new ground. On
land that us tilled every year they
aren't nearly as important.
Maybe you could ask to use or rent the
plow for a day or weekend to try it.
Post a couple of photos of it and the
asking price and we'll tell you if it's
worth it.
You will need to disc too after plowing
so enter the cost of that in your
equation.
I run an 8' disc behind my 3000.
It was still a gasser then. I've since
changed it to diesel.

cvphoto24877.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 16:29:17 05/30/19) Some random thoughts:
When I was 16 I worked for a berry
farmer near Oregon City, OR.
One of the jobs I did was to Rotovate
between the rows of berries with a
Massey of some sort. 50 years and a lot
of jobs later that is still the most
BORING job I've ever had.
I plow gardens for my cousins and put in
deer plots every year. I use a 3000 and
2-16 plow in our rocky, clay loam soil.
It does a great job.
Remember, with a plow you are traveling
4? times as fast as you do with a tiller
so would guess you'd turn more acres
faster. Its a lot more fun too - once
you get your settings right.
Coulters are much more important when
plowing sod or opening new ground. On
land that us tilled every year they
aren't nearly as important.
Maybe you could ask to use or rent the
plow for a day or weekend to try it.
Post a couple of photos of it and the
asking price and we'll tell you if it's
worth it.
You will need to disc too after plowing
so enter the cost of that in your
equation.
I run an 8' disc behind my 3000.
It was still a gasser then. I've since
changed it to diesel.

<img src="https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto24877.jpg">

I don't have a picture of it, but since I've posted, I looked at a Dearborn plow with coulters. Two bottoms, 14" between bottoms. Appears to be in decent shape. The shares are smooth and painted for protection.

400 bucks is what they're asking.

Is that price reasonable?

Is that something that I could expect to setup behind my 3000 (gas) without adjusting the tire width? I noticed that the plow has a threaded mechanism that adjusts where it trails on the three point hitch, to shift it to one side or the other a little.
 
$400 is a bit high but not out of line
for a good plow.
They did make several models of Dearborn
plows and parts for the older ones -
shares, etc are no longer available for
them. The later ones, the 10 series ones
use the same wear parts as a later Ford
101 plow so if that is the type you are
good.
See photo. They are kind of distinctive
from the older ones as the 3 pt hitch
pins are attached to a squarish bar.
I can't help much on your settings as I
don't know how wide you have your tires
set now.
If you go to the little n club forum
(not the yt one) you can view and
download original manuals for most Ford
plows.
I also highly recommend you go there and
DL the Ferguson Plow Book to help you
set up your plow for optimum use.
YT won't let me post a link -
competition thing.
I plowed gardens last weekend. I really
enjoy it every year.
My email is always open here if you want
more help.

cvphoto25231.jpg
 

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