How long to till 15 acres?

[MNBobcat]

Hi Guys,

I've never owned a farm tractor before last fall so please go easy on me.

I've got 15 acres of grass/weeds on sandy soil. I need to get this field very smooth and get rye and fescue grass seed planted. I talked to a fellow this morning who recommended tilling the field, then going over it with a pulvarizer (I'm assuming something like a harley rake) and then dragging followed by seeding with a brillion seeder. The field has no rocks and was in alfalfa years ago. Soil is all sand.

I can rent a 70 inch tiller. I have a John Deere 3020 diesel tractor which I think is about 70 hp. I would like to hear from some experienced people before I rent the tiller and try and tackle this job. Could I till 15 acres in a weekend? How many acres/hr do you think I might reasonably be able to get done?

 

[crusty 1]

I can only say that a friend has a 90 hp tractor with 6.5 foot tiller in loam he can till at a walking pace so I,d guess yes you can.:thumbsup:

 

[beenthere]

Burn it off first.

If you stay at it, then you will complete the tilling job over the weekend. Might even get a chance to sleep a little bit. Figure to cover 5' at a pass. That would be about 25 miles of tilling. At 3 mph that would be roughly 8+ hours non-stop, if my calculations are right. Couple acres per hour.

But I can't imagine you will need a Harley rake after tilling. A good 4-5 section drag should do the necessary finish work.

Or to start with a good tandem disc twice over at different angles, followed by a drag would be cheaper. Being it is sandy soil, I don't see a need for the tiller. But you are there, and I'm not.

 

[LRTX1]

I agree with beenthere.

My question would be how rough or unlevel is the field now? Are there big holes? A lot can be done with a disc and drag. If all you can get is a tiller that should be fine too.

 

[MNBobcat]

Originally the field was very, very rough due to gophers. Last summer I rented a gopher getter and put down poison and that helped. Then an 80 year old gentleman stopped by and asked if he could trap the gophers. I gave him $2 a gopher and the County paid him that, too. He trapped a 190 gophers. Afterwords, I dragged the field and got rid of a lot of the roughness.

I'm going to fly an ultralight off of the field. So I need to be able to travel up to 30 mph with 10 inch tires and not be shaking the ultralight to death.

I just got off the phone with a friend of my dad's and this fellow has been farming the area all his life. He suggested I spray roundup, wait 3 - 5 days then plow with a moldbord plow. Then he said immediately after I should disc. Does that sound like a good plan? Could I get the field as smooth disc'ing and dragging as I could if I used the soil pulverizer/harley rake?

 

[flusher]

Hi Guys,

I've never owned a farm tractor before last fall so please go easy on me.

I've got 15 acres of grass/weeds on sandy soil. I need to get this field very smooth and get rye and fescue grass seed planted. I talked to a fellow this morning who recommended tilling the field, then going over it with a pulvarizer (I'm assuming something like a harley rake) and then dragging followed by seeding with a brillion seeder. The field has no rocks and was in alfalfa years ago. Soil is all sand.

I can rent a 70 inch tiller. I have a John Deere 3020 diesel tractor which I think is about 70 hp. I would like to hear from some experienced people before I rent the tiller and try and tackle this job. Could I till 15 acres in a weekend? How many acres/hr do you think I might reasonably be able to get done?

A tiller is slow and, depending on how slow you go, will turn that sandy soil to powder. Is that what you want?

I'd use a 7-ft wide offset disc and make a few passes over the field in several directions. I chain old tires behind mine to till my 6-acre hayfield. The white things are 120 lb concrete weights to make the disc bite better hard soil.







Sounds like you don't have any tillage implements and want to rent instead of buy. You might be able to find a disc cheap in your area. My neighbor gave me that old disc and I got the tires free. I had to replace a few of the pans (disc) but otherwise didn't spend more than about $75 on it.

 

[Plow Guy]

Hey bobcat, I have a 55 hp tractor and a 6' tiller from tractor supply.
I tilled up 5 ac. of sandy soil in about 8 hours. Thats in low range 3rd gear, which is kind a fast. I do till in low 1 when I am making my rows, which makes it really smooth.. I have tried to till in low 4, but the tractor out runs the tiller.

I like the others guy's here, can say you should be able to do it , but you will have some long days.

 

[deputy11]

I agree with beenthere.

My question would be how rough or unlevel is the field now? Are there big holes? A lot can be done with a disc and drag. If all you can get is a tiller that should be fine too.

IMO a tiller is overkill. You'll waste a lot of time and fuel stirring up several inches of dirt the seed doesn't care about. The disc and drag idea is much better. You will need to run some kind of packer over it after the seed is spread to get good earth-to-seed contact and hope for rain.

 

[jenkinsph]

Hi Guys,

I've never owned a farm tractor before last fall so please go easy on me.

I've got 15 acres of grass/weeds on sandy soil. I need to get this field very smooth and get rye and fescue grass seed planted. I talked to a fellow this morning who recommended tilling the field, then going over it with a pulvarizer (I'm assuming something like a harley rake) and then dragging followed by seeding with a brillion seeder. The field has no rocks and was in alfalfa years ago. Soil is all sand.

I can rent a 70 inch tiller. I have a John Deere 3020 diesel tractor which I think is about 70 hp. I would like to hear from some experienced people before I rent the tiller and try and tackle this job. Could I till 15 acres in a weekend? How many acres/hr do you think I might reasonably be able to get done?

You should be able to till this with a 6' tiller in 16 hours, with a larger tiller in about 12 hours. You could disk and harrow this in about 12 hours or so. If the ground is rough it will be more comfortable using the tiller.

I would consider pulling a drag harrow behind the tiller to make it a one trip job to prepare the seedbed. This is tilling at 1.5 mph for 21 miles and calculate with some overlap running 24 miles at 1.5 mph= 16 hours. This is for a Powershift 3020 in 1st gear for a syncrorange figure 2 mph and 12 hours tilling a little more shallow.

 

[Bigkrank]

width of cut in feet X mph / 10 = how many acres an hour