Turning Plow or Tiller

[TNhobbyfarmer]

I have a small field to plant this fall for a food plot, probably oats and wheat. I have a turning plow and disc. The field has lots of rocks and I would prefer not to bring them to the top with a turning plow. I can borrow a 3 pt hitch tiller. The field is only about 1/3 acre so the tiller will do the job. I've never owned a tiller so my question is......will the tiller bring less rocks to the surface than the turning plow?

 

[Ted Summey]

To answer your question, based on my experience, the tiller will raise just as many rocks as any other implement. For clover and forage wheat, you don't need to deep plow. If your disc is heavy enough it should do the job. Here is what I would do.

Spray the existing vegetation and wait until it is burned down
Disc the area to get a two or three inches deep
Spread your seed and fertilizer
Cultipack

Good luck with your food plots

 

[gwdixon]

You had better be REAL good friends with the tiller owner. Nothing tears up a tiller like rocks.

A tiller will give you a nice, flat, smooth surface as the rear door drags across the ground. However, the rock are right there under the surface. Tillers do dig up rocks.

I'd go with Ted's recommendation in general. Only exception is that I might skip the spray and disc several times.

 

[Botabill]

If you borrowed my tiller and ran it through a rocky field you'd never borrow anything from me again. A tiller is not the tool for rocks. They don't get softer the more you till them. Over the last few days my wife and I picked hundreds of pounds of rocks out of a peice of land I will be tilling tomorrow. Use the disc.

 

[6011Artist]

botabill, some things I don't loan and my tiller is one of them for that very reason.

If there are rocks on the surface of a field I'll bet there are a lot more under the surface. I'd disk it to see "what comes up".

 

[jeff9366]

Food plots are not revenue producing fields. Soil does not require that much preparation.
Disc, sew, fertilize and ROLL IN small seed.
Oats and wheat are good. If this is your first effort at a food plot you may wish to try one of the NO TILL seed mixes.

Hancock's No Till Food Plot Seed Mix - 10 lb. Hancock's No Till Food Plot Seed Mix - 10 lb - $49.99 : Hancock Farm & Seed Company - Lawn, Pasture and Turf Grass Seed

 

[wngsprd]

One of my plots is very small and rocky - 20 by 80ft. I only have a tiller so have no choice on whether to use a disc. Each year I till it, I seem to bring more rocks to the surface. Fortunately, almost all of the rocks are golf ball or smaller and I removed any larger ones the first year. My other plots have almost no rocks and the tiller does a great job.

 

[3v0]

All the above answers are all good.

I don't think this is the case but if the ground is in grass you will need to use the plow to break it. You do not want to plow deeper then your topsoil in any case.

If the ground is very hard you may not get any real depth with a disc. Again you would want to use the plow then work some decomposed manure into it.

Rent nor borrow a rock picker.

My only limited experiance with no and low till is with good sized farms. They use specialized equipment. I have not idea how one does it small scale and on a budget. If anyone has worked this out I would be interested in knowing.

 

[Ted Summey]

My experience has not been good with "no till" food plot mixes when planted "no till" or minimum till. Based on the last 15 years of making food plots, some soil prep is always better. The key with any seed is good seed to soil contact no matter the seed type - depth will vary with seed variety and needs of the plants. The scratch and broadcast method just hasn't worked well for my purposes.

Plus the prepared food plot mixes always seem far more expensive than seeds that can be purchased locally. A brassica mix in a prepared mixture will cost 15 to 20 dollars here. The same variety of seed (turnips, kale and rape) from the feed mill will cost 6 or 8 dollars. Same is true for clovers and forage wheat.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[flusher]

I have a small field to plant this fall for a food plot, probably oats and wheat. I have a turning plow and disc. The field has lots of rocks and I would prefer not to bring them to the top with a turning plow. I can borrow a 3 pt hitch tiller. The field is only about 1/3 acre so the tiller will do the job. I've never owned a tiller so my question is......will the tiller bring less rocks to the surface than the turning plow?

Forget the tiller. My 10 acres is gravely loam with occasional potato-size rocks. I run my 7-ft wide offset disc over the hayfield with at attached tire drag (a piece of chain link fence with tires mounted on rims chained to the fence and the entire drag chained to the back of the disc). This gives me a smooth planting surface for my 10-ft wide grain drill (a restored Minneapolis Moline P3-6, 20 drops, 6" row spacing). Here are some photos of my stand of Kanota oats.



Good luck.