Row spacing for one row planter and cultivator?

[mike35549]

I have read a bunch of threads on here about this but none seem to fit my tractor. I have a one row planter and a cultivator, I want to use these to plant some corn next spring. My tractors back tires are 16" wide with a 48" center to center, 32" inside to inside, and 64" outside to outside. So my question is other than the obvious 48" row spacing is there any other row spacing that would work with this setup and be able to use a cultivator. The only other way I can even think of would be 32 inches and trying to run tires right beside previous row when planting next row which would probably work for planting just not sure how that would work when using the cultivator. 48" seems awful wide and seems like a lot of wasted space. Any ideals from you people that know a lot more than I do about this.

 

[MHarryE]

48 is very wide and wastes a lot of ground. In the old days 40 inch was a common row spacing but due to inefficiency, was replaced with 30 inch rows and tire spacing to match. With improved herbicides, row spacing are now down to about 22 inches for efficiency.

I have a 2 row 30 planter which works out well for me on the small amount of row crops I plant. The row units are a little inside my tires so I can step over, run my tire just a little beyond my previous track and maintain my 30 inch spacing. I have a cultivator set for 4 30 inch rows.

Your single row makes it real tough but I would try to figure a way to get a closer row spacing.

 

[JMER817]

You have about the same size tractor as I have by the sounds of it. I too was racking my brain on how to make a cultivator work behind it. Even laid it out in cad. Unless you want really wide row spacing it won't fit. Options are to use a rototiller in a smaller garden, or purchase a different tractor for just cultivating on a larger scale. Do you have a quad? Might be able to use that until the plants get too tall.

 

[mike35549]

Yea I thought about the using an ATV for cultivating. Or trying to lay it out in a double row fashion with two rows close together with regular tractor width between the double rows.

 

[teg]

I've thought about this, I have a one row planter that mounts to a tool bar, and several cultivating pieces. My though is to offset the one row planter to be near the right tire so that I could return back driving on the same tracks to plant another row under the tractor. Not sure if this makes any sense....

T S N S P S T = Tire, Space, Next row, Space, Plant row, Space, Tire

Then move the tines on the cultivator to leave both rows untouched. Not sure if you can move your tines around or not.

 

[PatrickS2222]

Can you adjust your rear track width to 60" centre-to-centre and the front to match? Then you can step across half the track width on each pass, and when cultivating set the tines accordingly. The down side of this is on the next pass, you tramp the row you just planted.

Can you fit narrower rear tyres and achieve a track of a suitable dimension?

The only alternative I can immediately think of is, as Teg suggested, to offset the planter - I believe 8" from the inside edge of one rear tyre, and keeping the outside of the tyre 8" from the previous row, when added to the 16" tyre width gives you 32" spacing. Cultivating will certainly be a problem. Offsetting to 6" and still maintaining 8" gives 30" spacing and should be Ok to cultivate.

Alternatively, keeping the planter centered and running the rear wheel close to the prior row - around 5-6" will give 24" spacing - good for cultivating, but you might adjust the corndropper to space the seed groups a little further apart. :thumbsup:

Just recalling: We planted corn in a similar manner and kept our planter "drops" suited to 24" spacing. This was using MF35 and 135 tractors.

 

[sixdogs]

I've thought about this, I have a one row planter that mounts to a tool bar, and several cultivating pieces. My though is to offset the one row planter to be near the right tire so that I could return back driving on the same tracks to plant another row under the tractor. Not sure if this makes any sense....

T S N S P S T = Tire, Space, Next row, Space, Plant row, Space, Tire

Then move the tines on the cultivator to leave both rows untouched. Not sure if you can move your tines around or not.

This how you plant with a one row cultivator. You offset the planter off of center, go one way and turn around and come back. You don't have to be exact in the tire tracks but you should plant in ground that has not been driven over. I plant on a 30" center.

It is frustrating to set up a cultivator for your setup because there is not a lot of space between the wheels for clearance. You could plant at a 22 " to 26" center but when in a similar situation I used a troybilt tiller for cultivating and spray to control weeds and used a 30" center. Worked great. Keep a lookout for a two row planter to make things easier.

 

[BCrouse]

Not sure it helps your situation, but I just started planting with a single-row manual push planter from Hoss.

Not planting a huge area, its about 2000sqft.

At some pointi think id like to adapt it to my toolbar and maybe add another one if I expand my garden space.

You can set the rows to anything you want really.

 

[1016]

I'm not a farmer and was wondering what my row spacing will be following in same track. My rear tires are 14" wide from center of tire to center of tractor is 21". I'm thinking it should be 42" the space from center to center of rear tire with row centered behind tractor. How is the row spacing figured?

 

[sixdogs]

Row spacing is figured on the center to center spacing of the rear tires and that is determined by conventional wisdom and agricultural practice. For example, mechanical limitations of most tractors ag type tractors are a 60" rear tire spacing. And, ag production research shows a 30" row crop spacing for corn works the best. So, it works and you have 60" center to center tractor tire spacing that straddles two rows. Soybeans can be spaced is as little as 8" so planters were developed to "split" the rows into either 15" or 8" and the tractor tires still fit between the corn stubble rows and it still works.

For garden crops, it the same on a smaller scale but you need more space than you think between a row because cultivating is done more often and row spacing is not as precise. But still, tractor tire width matters. For example, my Troybilt tiller is 20" wide but I need at least a 30" row for things like lettuce because so much dirt gets thrown around. Then I till in both directions in the row and don't rip up too many plants. I could still fit a tractor and cultivator through when the crop was young. The problem comes when I go to a 36" row that I prefer because it's great for the tiller but not for a tractor because it won't straddle the two rows and is too big to fit between them.

The tractor above has 42" center to center clearance and with 14" wide (actually 14.9) tires is 56" (actually 58") edge to edge. It's too narrow to straddle two rows but you could straddle one row of a maybe a 36" row, more or less. Yes, 42" would work but it's a lot of wasted garden space that can fill with weeds. I have found that I can plant my 30" corn nicely with a 60" spaced tractor and can cultivate it once or twice with a carefully set cultivator but any more needs my Troybilt. For the garden, I work the ground with the tractor and plant by hand with a 36" row spacing and use the Troybilt. For me, the tractor destroyed too much because it was more set up for row crop and not a garden. For something like potatoes, 42" would work.

As well, you can move the planter "offset" to the tractor so it closer to one tire and then plant one way and turn around and plant in reverse for a narrower spacing. This works for two rows and then you have a wider space that would need a wider row so put potatoes there.

A really small sub compact would work better in a garden, assuming ag tires and high enough crop clearance. You could straddle one row. As well, a larger tractor with narrow tires and spaced extra wide would straddle wider rows. It's easy to make math errors so cultivate some ground, drive over it and measure what you have to work with. Anyway, this is what I have learned.