Tillage Issue - Need Input

I have been having trouble working dirt down to where it will provide a good seed bed for corn or soybeans. Always have larger clods of
dirt than I want. The field was highly compacted. Last week I bought a ripper and went through the field. Large islands 3 foot long and huge dirt balls.
Yesterday I ran a disk over it to chop up the big ones. I know that the ripper is to be used in the fall but with last years yield I had to something this spring.
Attached is a picture of the field.

I need some advice that comes from experience. My question is what equipment to use to get this into much better shape. I currently have a disk, field cultivator, small cultipacker,
and rolling baskets. Not been able to get it with these. What other equipment would I look at to get it broke up?

Adding picture of field.

If your land is like the red clay in my area and its been worked when it was wet in the past you 'll need a sledge hammer to bust up the clods.A real big sledge hammer.

Trying picture again.

Maybe a rototiller would break those clods up.

A cultimulcher is what I would use. You can get it worked up with one but you will still have like planting in crushed stone. That ripper was your big mistake as ground has to freeze out when using one of those.

Rain is your friend. At least here, a rain will mellow that out.

Or, the snow we are getting today, looks half way to the 9 inches we are predicted to get.

Paul

That looks like the alkaline clay spots we deal with.. They can be a pain.. I've disked and disked and disked them, and all it seems to do is roll the marbles around.. Ive plowed them with the moldboard plow and then disked em and used a triple K spring tooth ahead of the drill.. but still had some clods.

I was looking at equipment and came across a crow foot cultipacker. My current one has smooth wheels. I read
somewhere that the crow foot was more aggressive to break up clods. Would that work on these dirt balls I have?

I have a crow foot packer it'll bust clods with some weight on it.

Alkaline Clay.....my soil....clods...my soil, concrete when dry....my soil......

On the subsoiler, the Hay King Pasture renovator is perfect for subsoiling this soil. It cuts down 10-12" and leaves basically no surface disturbance. Working an X pattern really sets you up for some nice disc One Way or Tandem Disc (heavily weighted) surface working which doesn't leave the field in heaps and clods with which you have to deal. I previously tore up the front end on a 4wd tractor with a bucket full of gravel (for ballast) trying to smooth out a field where I had rolled the soil as does a modboard plow....using a rolling disc type plow made for this soil....I said there had to be a better way!

After that I wait for a good rain, give it time to dry out and come back over what I have, then finishing up with a spike toothed (chain type) harrow. Letting it lay-by over winter, freezing and thawing which pulverizes the soil and when dried out will sift through the fingers on your hand.

Yoy say you have a small cultipacker with smooth wheels and looking at a crowfoot packer. Neither one is whst you need. A cultipacker only has rollers. What you need is a cultimulcher that is an entirely different implement. The cultimulcher will have a roller at front, then 2 rows of spring teeth and then a final roller. I don't know if a crowfoot would be better or worse on clods like that. Where the crowfoot works best is in clay ground that works up very fine and then when you get a rain you get a heavy crust that at times a good rotary hoe cannot penetrate to let the emerging crop to break thru, The smooth wheel packer packs top layer of soil and that rain then makes the crust. The crow foot packer does not pack the surface but about an inch below surface and that loose soil on top does not crust over with that rain like the soil the top layer is so fine it does not take much rain to crust very hard. A ceowfoot packer is a very good implement to pull behing your grain drill in planting soybeans as it firms seed in ground but does not make that crusting surface like a smooth roller packer will. A cultimulcher will front roller firm the clods to where when the teeth come alond the clod is harder for the tooth to push out of the way thus breaking the clod better with second roe doing better and back roller leveling and firming things up. What would be a good setup is if you could find a cultimulcher of same with as your disk and be able to pull them in tandem. Disk would want to cut clods some and first roller would firm the vlods into ground fot teeth to start working on . that mess might take 2-3 times over with that disc-cultimulcher setup. Pulled the disk or field cultivator + cultimulcher setup many a time but my outfit was only 0' wide. But doing it with an A John Deere tractor.

Looks like it was just worked wet. Rain and not rushing back on to it will be your best hope.

A ripper is best used in the fall.

YES! Some days it's better to go to town and shoot pool than to work ground way too wet. A rototiller may break up those brick-bats. Or a cultimulcher. I worked some spots with the disk and frankly, the disk only provided the load, the dialed rear tires scratching for traction chewed up the clouds as much as anything. The good news is this coming winter will reset everything, freeze/thaw cures all.
The dirt coming off the moldboards of the plow should crumble into tiny bits.