Tiller Tractor Speed For Running Tiller

[ShaneD]

I started tilling about 2 1/2 acres last week so I still have this fresh in my mind.

My intent, when starting, was to kill the grass first so depth wasn't really as important on the first pass. On virgin soil, depending on moisture content, I was mostly using Low3 or Low4 on my Kubota 3430/6ft tiller. (I think the JD5105 may be around 40hp? Not sure.) I think the Low4 gear is around 3mph. 90% of the time i ran the tiller completely lowered. Only raised it when i saw RPMS starting to fall off.

In areas of high moisture content it was much slower than the areas that were dry. Going back over it on the 2nd day, after it had time to dry out some, it was much faster going (less bogging down).

I guess it really depends on what your trying to do. My project is to kill the grass and break up a few inches so i can move some dirt around and level out the property. If your plan is to till a field for planting or if you are working on a vegetable garden then I'm sure you will want to go a bit slower and run at full depth all the time.

Just remember. With a tiller you'll be doing 10x the work in a whole lot less time.

 

[john_bud]

HI,

I till with a KK 60" using a L3410 with HST. It really is the cats meow for matching speed to ground condition. It can do 2 acres of virgin ground in a day. That's about what I do, but it is recently cut saplings with a mix of small, medium and huge rocks, stumps and a few Wazits. Probably 1/3 or more of the time is spent jumping off the tractor to toss rocks, clear out roots and look for the Wazit that caused the noise.

Do yourself a favor and get a slip clutch on the tiller. A new field will almost always yield 10-20 good snifs of clutch material. It's a lot easier to sniff that than change a bolt!

If you do get a tractor with "fast" low gearing, a reverse rotation tiller might do a better job. They do cost more though.

jb

 

[ScottAR]

I see my worry was unfounded... What adjustments fixed the problem??

 

[LBrown59]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Hzgrey, I have a 5205 with a 681 tiller.
The tractor needs to be cranking at PTO speed to make the tiller effective. At those RPMs, the speed of the tractor seems a bit fast for tilling, but it works fine. I've readwhere someone said it was too fast, but in the hard clay soil we have around here, it's not a problem. I just tilled a large garden plot of virgin soil and it worked without a hitch once I got everything adjusted properly.
Later this summer I will be tilling a 3 acre hay field for reseeding. I have another 10 acres of hay fields I'll be tilling over the next few years.
I don't think an acre is very much to till. My new garden is about a 1/4 acre and it takes me about 10 minutes for one pass. Next year I plan on putting in at least an acre of veggies.
Beats the heck out of plows and disk. )</font>I have about . 6 of an acre I need tilled and seeded for grass.
There are lots of 1'' to 2'' roots and a few that are 2 to 4 inch along with a few stumps.
Do you think your tractor and tiller would have a problem tilling a piece of land like this?

 

[HEC]

I ran into the same situation when buying my tractor as the low speed on the M5700 Kubota was to fast for what I needed also.I chose to have to have the creeper gears installed when I purchased it and so happy I did as I have used them so much more than I ever thought I would.I recommend them very highly.I use to help my dad rototill about 2 acres of garden every year.Soil conditions can vary so much it is hard to say what speed will be right for you so try and get a tractor with all the speeds that you can.Hst would be great for tilling for sure but just wasn't for some of the other things I use a tractor for so I chose creeper gears to get all the speeds I would ever need.
Good Luck,
Herb

 

[Glenn9643]

Bill,
If you haven't settled on a tractor yet and prefer gear look for the "creeper" option. On some it's standard and others you can often get it as an optional item. My creeper range gives plenty slow enough speeds to till anything I've encountered.

 

[NewToy]

I just tilled a 30x60 garden in virgin Ohio soil with my 48" KKII tiller. My tractor is gear drive with low gear being .73 mph @ pto speed. I found this to be just about right, I don't think I would want to go much faster. I dropped my rpm's down a notch on the first pass just to slow down a bit in case I found some "buried treasure". (rocks)


John

 

[HillbillyFarmer]

Sorry, just saw your question. . .
I had to adjust my draft links (by adjusting the lift links) because the tiller wasn't going low enough. It's a new rig and the original adjustment worked fine with my brush hog, but took me a while to figure out why the tiller wasn't going low enough.

 

[HillbillyFarmer]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( </font><font color="blueclass=small">( Hzgrey, I have a 5205 with a 681 tiller.
The tractor needs to be cranking at PTO speed to make the tiller effective. At those RPMs, the speed of the tractor seems a bit fast for tilling, but it works fine. I've readwhere someone said it was too fast, but in the hard clay soil we have around here, it's not a problem. I just tilled a large garden plot of virgin soil and it worked without a hitch once I got everything adjusted properly.
Later this summer I will be tilling a 3 acre hay field for reseeding. I have another 10 acres of hay fields I'll be tilling over the next few years.
I don't think an acre is very much to till. My new garden is about a 1/4 acre and it takes me about 10 minutes for one pass. Next year I plan on putting in at least an acre of veggies.
Beats the heck out of plows and disk. )</font>I have about . 6 of an acre I need tilled and seeded for grass.
There are lots of 1'' to 2'' roots and a few that are 2 to 4 inch along with a few stumps.
Do you think your tractor and tiller would have a problem tilling a piece of land like this? )</font>

Don't know. . . haven't hit too many rocks, stumps or roots, but I suspect it would slice right through them. It destroys the hard clay soil on my hillside and doesn't seem to notice fairly large fist sized and bigger rocks.

 

[monkeymonk]

Got my tiller the other day /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif busted up the virgin ground first with 3prong buster to get deep and break up the ground first. Now uma thinking rock fork /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Glad i busted the virgin first other wise it would have been jam city and i got to know what i was getting into rock, rock, and more rocks! didn't look rocky they were just hiding. I love implements /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif