6011Artist
Gold Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2008
- Messages
- 373
- Location
- Darlington, SC
- Tractor
- 1957 Ferguson 35, 1977? Yanmar 2200, 1963 Cub Cadet Original
duroc, My PHD is an older unit that does not have down force on it and in my normal sandy land it works great. I've have loamy sandy land the first 12 inches or so and then it gets into sand clay. No problem.
I too have lots of trees and so far tree roots have never presented a problem. I guess if you got real close to the tree the auger could possibly not cut the root but let the auger go by it, the root getting caught between the blades of the auger and it acting like a woodscrew, using the roots to hold it in the ground but in 20 yrs and 50 holes that has never happened.
My older Ferguson doesn't have the strength in the hydraulics that a newer tractors would have so I let my auger go down a foot or so and raise it slightly to make sure it is still free spinning and not just screwing itself into the ground like a big woodscrew. I can dig 5' deep and if I try to go all 5' without slinging the dirt off a time or two it has screwed itself in the clay and I have to use a big farm jack to jack it back out enough to break it free. But after doing that a time or two you learn to keep check on it several times as you dig down deeper.
I too have lots of trees and so far tree roots have never presented a problem. I guess if you got real close to the tree the auger could possibly not cut the root but let the auger go by it, the root getting caught between the blades of the auger and it acting like a woodscrew, using the roots to hold it in the ground but in 20 yrs and 50 holes that has never happened.
My older Ferguson doesn't have the strength in the hydraulics that a newer tractors would have so I let my auger go down a foot or so and raise it slightly to make sure it is still free spinning and not just screwing itself into the ground like a big woodscrew. I can dig 5' deep and if I try to go all 5' without slinging the dirt off a time or two it has screwed itself in the clay and I have to use a big farm jack to jack it back out enough to break it free. But after doing that a time or two you learn to keep check on it several times as you dig down deeper.