Plowing with a 30 Hp Compact tractor with or without FEL

[MasseyWV]

Put the 275# in the FEL bucket. Fill the rear tires with fluid add wheel weights.

jb

I agree. If you have room to manuver, the added weight of the FEL and a loaded bucket would provide much more weight and have the added benefit of having the FEL if you need it.

 

[N80]

Dump the the three point hitch plow and get a drawbar pull type. It will make life much easier!

Unless you only have half an acre to turn around in.

 

[Egon]

With two bottoms it don't take much room. But if'n your talking ten 22 in. bottoms then it's a little different!

 

[john_bud]

John,
When I load the bucket it wants to lift the rear of the machine, even with the loaded tires. This is why I thought removing the loader might be better for traction.

When the plow is set up correctly, it will pull the back of the tractor down. It can pull it down so hard that the front of the tractor will start to teeter totter up. That's why there are front weight bars on tractors - to counteract that tendency.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

With two bottoms it don't take much room. But if'n your talking ten 22 in. bottoms then it's a little different!

I've plowed both ways... With drawn plows and mounted. For anything less than 5 or 6 bottoms, I wouldn't use a drawn plow unless someone had a gun pointed to my head. And anything OVER 5 or 6, make mine a semi-mounted plow. Drawn plows require extra ballast on the tractor, which means more fuel and more compaction. They require more hp per bottom than a typical mounted plow, again, even MORE fuel. Since we aren't talking about a tractor that could pull "ten 22"s", instead talking about 2X12"'s, that has no real relevance in this case.

 

[rankrank1]

Definitely do not consider a tow type plow with a light-weight tractor. Most Vintage tractors had to weigh in excess of 6000lbs to pull 2-12's utilizing a tow type plow.
Then along comes Harry Ferguson in 1939 and develops the 3-point hitch system design still used today. Due to the brilliance of this design, his tractor weighed less than 3000 lbs, but could still pull 2-12 plows of 3 point hitch style. Why- because the hitch system provides downforce suction to the rear of the tractor providing traction so the extra 3000lbs of ballast weight that was needed with tow type plows is not needed.
Ferguson's sytem was brilliant during a time of steel rationing of WWII. 2 tractors could be made with the same 6000 lbs of steel instead of the previous 1 tractor.

 

[N80]

With two bottoms it don't take much room. But if'n your talking ten 22 in. bottoms then it's a little different!

I must have the tiniest food plots in the world. Its tight turning around in some of them even with a 3 pt hitch plow. No wonder the deer around here are so skinny.

Also, all this talk about plows and big tractor muscle got me to thinking. Back in the old days....real old days, it only took one HP to pull a drawn single bottom plow. Or maybe that should be one MP (mule power).

Or maybe two MP:

YouTube - Mules Plowing

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Definitely do not consider a tow type plow with a light-weight tractor. Most Vintage tractors had to weigh in excess of 6000lbs to pull 2-12's utilizing a tow type plow.
Then along comes Harry Ferguson in 1939 and develops the 3-point hitch system design still used today. Due to the brilliance of this design, his tractor weighed less than 3000 lbs, but could still pull 2-12 plows of 3 point hitch style. Why- because the hitch system provides downforce suction to the rear of the tractor providing traction so the extra 3000lbs of ballast weight that was needed with tow type plows is not needed.
Ferguson's sytem was brilliant during a time of steel rationing of WWII. 2 tractors could be made with the same 6000 lbs of steel instead of the previous 1 tractor.

Try 19TWENTY9. Ferguson Family Museum, Freshwater, Isle of Wight

 

[Egon]

excess of 6000lbs to pull 2-12's utilizing a tow type plow.

Plain Bull! Oh and should I add lack of knowledge! I know my knowledge is limited but this statement runs right in with it.


Dear me; Tell this to the thousands of farmers who pulled drawbar plows. With tractors of lessor weight!

Then tell it to Dobbin and his companion who pulled many a two bottom plow!

There seems to be a cult following of the Ferguson three point hitch for certain areas. Believe me this does not extend to the total farming world! Nor does the indestructible nature of the Ferguson tractor or the 8N etc.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

There seems to be a cult following of the Ferguson three point hitch for certain areas. Believe me this does not extend to the total farming world! Nor does the indestructible nature of the Ferguson tractor or the 8N etc.

So you think the ONLY tractors with 3-point and draft control are Fergusons and Ford N's? I do believe I've seen millions of Deere's, IH's, Molines' Olivers, Cases, McCormicks, Valtra's, JCB's, Duetz, Allis Chalmers, ect, also with 3-point and draft control. It's been virtually impossible to buy a FARM tractor WITHOUT a 3-point hitch in the last 35 or 40 years, short of those big 4WD's. Seems to be a relatively small "following" of antique collectors still using drawn plows, or giant 4WD's that use plows too big for being mounted, but the vast majority of your "total farming world" dropped the archaic drawn plow decades ago. Drawn plows under 4 bottoms went out of fashion half a century ago. I have been involved in farming my entire life (60 y o) and don't recall ever seeing a NEW drawn plow of less than 5 bottoms for well over 50 years. When the "Wheatland" or "standard tread" tractors of the 40's through early 70's went out of favor, there's been virtually no market for smaller (under 6 bottoms) drawn plows.

And about that "cult following in certain areas"..... FordN's sold well over 1/2 million units in the US alone. TO20,TO30,TO35, MF35,MF135 sold WORLDWIDE near 2 million units. The MF135 alone was produced in numbers over 225,000 in Detroit and 265,000 in England. That doesn't even account for the 135's built in France. At one time, 1 out of every 4 tractors sold in England was a 135 Massey Ferguson. Massey still sells tractors to this day that have very strong simularities to those 50 year old TO's. They sell in large numbers WORLDWIDE. Since their inception, the N series Ford and the TO series Fergusons were produced in greater volume that ANY tractor since. The TO Series Ferguson has been called the most immitated tractor on earth.

I'd say that's quite a "cult following in certain areas" without even bothering to include the rest of the models built by those 2 manufacturers. Apparently, "certain areas" must mean the planet earth

What a shame... If only we could go back in time and let Poor Harry Ferguson and poor Henry Ford know their tractors would never catch on beyond that insignificant "cult following", we could have saved them from building and selling millions of them.


Oh,