Middlebuster for a trench, rocky soil

[Sackett2]

It's at a glacial moraine - where a glacier halted, briefly, and dumped car sized boulders, cobbles and till, all in a big pile on top of ledge.

I wonder what "Briefly" is for a glacier?

 

[Baby Grand]

A few hundred years?
It wasn't a terminal moraine.
Those can create really big features, things like Cape Cod & Long Island

 

[Herkypilot]

I have a King Kutter (TSC Farm Force label) subsoiler that rips up to about 20" deep if I sink it to the crossmember:


I'd give a long, hard look at the Fred Cain subsoiler that Ted mentioned. They have a very good reputation and having shear pin protection could save your bacon if you "find" a really big rock.

My subsoiler lacks shear pin protection - that's a modification on my To-Do list.

-Jim

Yes, shear pin protection is important. I bent up my first subsoiler the first day I used it behind my 50 hp tractor. Took it back for a refund and purchased a Fred Cain. Too many unknowns when digging in soil that hasn't been previously disturbed.

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

It is pretty rocky here. Not good for crop land on my place any way.
I also have a lot of tree roots to contend with.
I have had acceptable luck with these two home made tools.
First using the sub soil tool then the other after that.
Posting a picture may be the hardest part of the job.
Good luck
------

 

[Jules083]

Yes, shear pin protection is important. I bent up my first subsoiler the first day I used it behind my 50 hp tractor. Took it back for a refund and purchased a Fred Cain. Too many unknowns when digging in soil that hasn't been previously disturbed.

My 'shear pin' right now is a pair of unloaded R-4's on the 2720. Apparantly I can pull hard enough to get the job done, but spin the tires before anything breaks. Hit the buried porch for the old log cabin that was here a century ago, didn't break anything. Now I'm stopped, I need to figure out where to adjust fire and put this line. There was maybe a foot gap I was hoping to hit between the old porch and the new, that's not happening now.

Dad keeps wanting to just put it on the big tractor and try it, seems like a bad idea. 75 HP John Deere, 4wd, front end loader, rear wheel weights, brand new loaded tires. I can hear something breaking already.

My dad keeps discounting the 2720. We both look at the tractor very differently. I see a small, medium duty farm tractor that happens to have a belly mower. He sees a lawnmower that happens to have a hitch on it. I wouldn't want to put long days in a field working it somehow, but it does great at little stuff like this. I actually did rake with it once, it performed well but I wouldn't want to do it again. The 'high' on the hydrostatic was lacking power without a lot of RPM's, and the low was too slow. Flat ground was great, but I started working a hill and it was a bit much for it. I should have probably gotten an older model with a real transmission. My friend has an older 25 hp Kubota, my JD is a 31 hp, and his Kubota has more power I think due to the transmission.

 

[Jules083]

It is pretty rocky here. Not good for crop land on my place any way.
I also have a lot of tree roots to contend with.
I have had acceptable luck with these two home made tools.
First using the sub soil tool then the other after that.
Posting a picture may be the hardest part of the job.
Good luck
------
View attachment 277270

Good work on those. I should have made something, I have enough going on right now without engineering some equipment. I tend to over-build and over-think everything, and by the time I'm done I end up with a heavy tool that took all day to build but you probably couldn't break if you had to. I built a carry-all thing last winter, it works great except the tractor is half loaded just hooking to the empty box. I use it on the big tractor now. I'd hate to see it if I'd actually designed it for the big one.

 

[sdkubota]

It is pretty rocky here. Not good for crop land on my place any way.
I also have a lot of tree roots to contend with.
I have had acceptable luck with these two home made tools.
First using the sub soil tool then the other after that.
Posting a picture may be the hardest part of the job.
Good luck
------
View attachment 277270

We call that one on the left a "ripper tooth" in my neck of the woods...err prairie.

 

[case245]

in rocks it will go 4-6 inckes max non rocks 8 10 inches i used one alot i would say get a plow they go 12 14 inches deep them mb at tsc are junk i busted a few buy a used plow and be done with it with a plow u will just brake shear pin with a mb you will twist it like a prezel

 

[jenkinsph]

I would definately run the subsoiler point several times loosening the soil over a 12" width before sinking the middle buster down.

 

[pwright]

I needed to run some polyline across a packed down dirt road on the property and happened to run across this thread before heading up there yesterday. The sub-soiler sounded like just the ticket and so made a quick side-trip to Tractor Supply on the way up to the property to pick one up. Figured worst case was that I'd be out $160 bucks.

It did a fine job of cutting through the packed dirt and kicked up some good sized rocks. One of them stopped me dead when I first hit it but a second pass just pulled it up to the surface. When I took it off later to put the box blade back on it seemed to have come through unscathed.

For some reason I was expecting it to actually make a trench though. While some small amount of dirt was displaced through the action of breaking it up it wasn't really a trench. The good thing is that it only took a few minutes of work with a shovel to scoop out all the now loose dirt and rock so that was a great time and back saver. Getting the line across the road without have to worry about it being run over was the goal and that mission was accomplished.

So was I, in my ignorant newbie state, expecting too much or did I use it wrong (also highly likely)? Would using a middle buster after the sub-soiler give me a more trench-like result? I've got about 950' more of polyline I wouldn't mind burying if I don't have to do it by hand.