Plows are real soil dependent. Someone said to plow when it's dry. In our soil, forget it. The clay breaks up like boulders. Our farm in Missouri, bottom land, rich black dirt, plows easy. Could pull 3 x 14 with my L5740 no problem. In Northern Minnesota, the 40 where my house is and the 40 across the road, 2 x 14 is all it can do, but it varies from place to place which makes turning on all the control options on the hydro great because it will keep it at peak power across the field with more than 50% speed variation. I had an old Dearborn with cast shares but broke the point on a share last fall and replaced the plow with a King Kutter to finish, didn't notice and difference in plowing seed. The Dearborn had 6 moldboard options - I had the general purpose. But for most of our plowing we use our 7730 Deere with 5 x 14. It loafs at 7 mph but never ave to shift down. The tractor s 150 PTO HP per Nebraska tests or 3 times the PTO HP of the L5740, but with its semi-mounted plow it can get to be a nasty in small crooked fields (major diff between Northeast and Northwest MN) so the CUT with fully mounted plow has its place. So here 25 PTO HP per bottom seems to be adequate, but like I said, our MO farm with loose soil will take about 12 - 15 PTO HP per bottom. And as to the question about a hydro doing the job - the L5740 uses about twice as much fuel per acre as the 7730 with a 20 speed power shift.
