Plow 101 questions (German vs. American)

[AlanB]

So, I am speaking with my BIL and we get speaking of Plows and somehow his conversation goes along the lines of, "when you turn the plow over"

Left me really scratching my head until I realized what I was seeing in the fields.

Their Plows have a left and right Plow (probably the wrong terminology but you get the point) stacked one over the other. When they reach the end of the row, they "flip the plow", for lack of a better term and come back down the next row, and all the dirt ends up folded the same way.

When I have plowed, my small garden, it was not that big of a deal to go around, or to make big humps but how do folks plow a normal field? Round in a circular motion would work but I cannot picture it.

Anyway, will grab a digital pic tomorrow I hope and share.

 

[IslandTractor]

I forget what we call them but some US manufacturers also have the "flip" plows. Makes perfect sense and I'm sure they are more efficient but also more expensive and mechanically complex.

 

[Egon]

YouTube - Onland plowing with Trimble Autopilot RTK

A Reversible plow in action. The reversing is at the end of the video.

 

[Ductape]

Aren't they generally referred to as 'roll-over' plows? At least thats what i hear them called in these parts.

 

[IslandTractor]

Aren't they generally referred to as 'roll-over' plows? At least thats what i hear them called in these parts.

That is the term I was trying to remember.

 

[AlanB]

I had never seen them.

So how do folks do it on a large scale with the normal plows?

 

[Opti-Mist]

The roll-over plows were developed for the smaller fields typical of europe. They allowed the operator to be more productive by allowing them to make a sharp turn, roll the plow over and plow back alongside the last furrow made thus not requiring the large headlands needed to make end of field turns with semi-mounted or pull-type plows.

Here we normally lay the field out in strips to accomodate headland turns regardless of the type of plow. When the first furrow is in the center of the strip, the next furrow is laid against it by plowing in the opposite direction creating a back furrow. When the last furrow of one strip is adjacent to the last furrow of an adjoinging strip leaving a "ditch" known as a dead furrow. Once the stips are all plowed, the headlands where the turns were made are plowed to finish the field.

There are other variations, but this gives you the idea.