Tiller Tiller Question. 4' or 5' Tiller ?

[Gary Fowler]

No troll here, I'm coming up on two thousand acres of custom ground tilled, most of it through my 6' tiller, (I have three Howards) so I know what works and what doesn't.

Nope, if you want to be embarrassed, pick a time this spring, pm me and I'll give you my address. I'm probably close to a thousand miles away and I don't need to haul my equipment over there when I already know what will happen.

A 25 or 30 pto hp compact tractor just isn't going to handle a 6' Howard, tilling like I do on every custom job I go to... SR

I think the point is that if your tiller has the weight to make a full depth cut in one pass then it will certainly require more HP. The speed of tilling is another factor that much be acknowledged. A deep cut and fast speed will take a lot more HP than a deep cut and slow speed. I doubt that a 20 HP tractor would have any problem running a 60" tiller if the speed were slow enough even going to full cut depth. Kinda like the old saying about how to eat an elephant? One little bite at a time. That works for tillers also.

As for tilling 2+ acres- I would just use a disk harrow using 2-3 passes and it will be just as good as a tiller. A disk wont pulverize the soil like a tiller BUT many folks overtill with a tiller so the soil is just fluffed up with lots of air which is not good. I only use my KK II tiller to do my small garden and 1-2 passes@2-3 MPH is all I do. ANY more and it is overtilled.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I always till at full depth... and "normally" at 2.75 mph...

That's how you keep from over tilling the soil and get something done!!

In some ground, going slooow doesn't make up for having an under sized tractor for a bigger tiller...

There are many ways to get soil tilled, and I can, with MY set up, get soil to be anyway I want, normally in one pass. It's really all about how you adjust the tiller for the conditions you are in or what the customer wants his soil to end up looking like...

SR

 

[Gary Fowler]

I always till at full depth... and "normally" at 2.75 mph...

That's how you keep from over tilling the soil and get something done!!

In some ground, going slooow doesn't make up for having an under sized tractor for a bigger tiller...

There are many ways to get soil tilled, and I can, with MY set up, get soil to be anyway I want, normally in one pass. It's really all about how you adjust the tiller for the conditions you are in or what the customer wants his soil to end up looking like...

SR

My KKII is in float when I till, but in hard soil, it just wont go very deep if you are going faster than a snail pace due to the light weight. It does a lot of bouncing around and maybe tills 2" deep if traveling 2 MPH even though it has 5 tines to the hub, it just doesn't have the weight to really dig in.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Gary, some times it's better to wait and till after a rain, as most times that allows the tiller to penetrate deeper... That's what I do here on my place so conditions are perfect, but when doing custom work, you just can't wait for those "perfect" conditions.

My Howard is fairly heavy, so I rarely have problems with it not wanting to go full depth...

SR