tiller newbie notes

   / tiller newbie notes #1  

fractal

Gold Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2001
Messages
338
Location
santa barbara, ca
Tractor
kubota b7200hst
Today marked a number of firsts.

It was the first mow of the new year so my grass looks a little less ragged and the leaves got vacumed up and added to the compost pile.

It is also the first time I used the tiller on my kubota other than the initial checkout when I bought it. Most of what I learned today is probably old news to anyone who has used a tractor tiller before but may be of interest to those considering buying one.

The area I tilled is a 50 x 100 garden. I tried tilling it last year with my 5hp front tine tiller and gave up. I then rented a 10hp rear tine tiller. That thing bounced me around the garden even worse than the front tine tiller and I am not a small person. You had to take multiple passes increasing the depth each pass, till subsequent passes at 90 degrees to the previous one. All in all, I spent 100 bucks for a half day rental, got beat up and did not get a decent till. So, when I went looking for a tractor for some yard work, a tiller was high on my list of "must have"'s.

The ground today was a little too wet for tilling. I am sure my small gas tiller would have clogged and quit. The following picture shows what the tractor did in 5 minutes contrasting the 'old' with the 'new'.
tiller.jpg

From this experience I have learned the following:

1. You are not going to win any land speed records when tilling. I was going as slow as the tractor possibly could go. The tiller never really bogged down (except when hitting rocks) but a slow crawl speed let the unit do a good job and was gentler on the poor little 7200hst.

2. Hydrostat transmission is a godsend for tilling. I honestly can not imagine having my tire speed tied to my pto speed when tilling. I would feather the hydro to move an inch or two and wait, then feather it again when working tough spots. It handled both without blinking.

3. You don't need multiple passes when using a tractor tiller. The first pass does a great job all by itself when breaking ground. I will make more passes after the ground drys out a bit more and I add my soil ammendments.

4. Tracter tillers can handle ground conditions that a walk behind can't. My tryout when I bought the tractor was on bone dry clay and todays work was on ground that was still too wet.

5 The only thing chickens like better than freshly mowed lawn is freshly tilled garden :)

I put just over an hour on the clock including the time to drop the box and hook up the tiller. Compared to 4 hrs with a rear tine walkbehind for the same area, and I got much better results.

I put in two lawns as well as worked my garden every year with my 5hp front tine tiller at the old house and it was hard work. I would recommend the extra to rent a tractor tiller to anyone doing a large amount of tilling. You will get a better till and probably save money as well. The extra cost per hour will easily be made up for many fewer hours. I consider the $500.00 I spent on the tiller money well spent.

About the only thing I keep the old 5hp front tine tiller for is doing raised beds. I can heft the walkbehind tiller into the beds. Don't think I would try them with the tractor :)
 
   / tiller newbie notes #2  
Does your chicken like to follow you when you are working on the tractor? Our deer follow us when we work in the pen, we had to watch out so we wouldn't hit one of them when we had a JD 450G in there as the deer would walk up behind the machine to see what we are doing. Animals make work fun don't they. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
 
   / tiller newbie notes #3  
A comment on the need for HST when using a rototiller...

Though I have not tried it, I have been told that you can just leave a standard transmission in neutral, allow the tiller to move the tractor forward, and control the speed with your brakes...

Has anyone tried this trick?
 
   / tiller newbie notes #4  
fractal,


Welcome to the enlightened side - those converted by using a PTO rotary Tiller.

Prior to buying my JD4100/HST with 58" tiller, I used a 7 horse Troybilt rear tine tiller. I have about 6000 sq ft of beds to till. All of this was done with the rear tine tiller under all soil conditions. I also furrowed with the tiller also. Typically four 50 rows for potatoes, 4-6 rows for corn, and one row for leeks. As you can image, I had hours and hours of tilling (spread over days and days). Potato havesting was done by hand (and back - mind you!).

Now with my tractor/rotary tilling. I can get everything done in a couple of hours with multiple passes. Besides the tractor, the tiller was one of the best purchases we made. And as far as making furrows and havesting potatoes, a middle buster is the only way to go for a small operation.

The HST with 4wd drive give you control over your ground speed with infinite control depending on soil conditions. Wouldn't have it any other way (well, unless I can find someone to do all of the tilling and harvesting whilst I have a mint julip while supervising. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif).

Terry
 
   / tiller newbie notes #5  
Steve, there are a number of variables involved; weight of the tractor, size of tiller, how soft the ground is (not only for how easy it is for the tiller to dig, but whether your tires sink into the ground a bit) and things like that. But, yes, under just the right conditions, the tiller will push the tractor forward. If I tried tilling with the B7100 in 2WD and high range, it would tend the push the tractor along, so there's no doubt it would have in neutral, but the same tiller does not propel the B2710. I also doubt that the forward push would be consistent enough; i.e, try to push too fast and you use the brake, then not push at all if the tiller worked its way in too deep. In other words, it can work, but I wouldn't count on it./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
 
   / tiller newbie notes #6  
Terry, I'm curious. What do you do with the leeks? And do you re-plant every year? Seed or bulbs? I've seen a few recipes that used leeks, but we never use them, even though I have a couple of small volunteer spots that they come up every year. I just let them grow all summer, but mow them down in the Fall. And right now, they're probably 10-12" tall.
 
   / tiller newbie notes #7  
Steve
If you have a reverse rotation tiller, you will need FWD and a low gear or HST to get any tilling done. The tines are pulled up into the soil as tractor moves forward.
Forward rotating tines rotate down into the soil, which should pull the tractor forward. With the rocks I have in my property my brakes would get a real work out. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
 
   / tiller newbie notes #8  
I'll second Bird's comments on allowing the tiller to push the tractor. I'd heard this, too, and tried it a few times with my L4310HST. Obviously, with the HST, I didn't need to, I just wanted to see if it would work. My experience: sometimes, and sort of. Even when it will push the tractor, in the best of circumstances, it might do a passable job, but very rarely.
 
   / tiller newbie notes #9  
<font color=blue>...If you have a reverse rotation tiller, you will need FWD and a low gear or HST to get any tilling done.</font color=blue>

I'm also a tiller newbie. Got a JD 550 as part of a package deal with my 4300. My experience with it so far has been to back it into the garage and disconnect it. Period. Wish I'd had a chance to try it, but I needed to get the equipment stored for the winter, and didn't want to mess with it until I had digested the manual fully.

It looks, from the pictures in the manual, like mine is a reverse rotation model. They don't say this, explicitly, that I can find.. just some little diagrams.

Is there an advantage to forward versus reverse rotation? Is this JD 550 unit a fairly good one (I hope)?

On another note, a guy once posted that on his JD GT 300 class machine, the tiller would push the tractor.. and his tractor didn't have real wheel brakes.. the brakes just acted on the transmission in some way. As a result, he came to the end of a row he was tilling, pushed on the brake which did absolutely nothing, and proceeded to drive into a fence. He learned to disengage his tiller at the end of each row. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
 
   / tiller newbie notes #10  
Bob
I'm not familiar with <font color=green>JD</font color=green> line of tillers. There is a thread on pro's and cons of forward and revere rotation tillers. I included a picture of how a <font color=orange>Kubota</font color=orange> reverse tine tiller works in it. Check it out <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=implement&Number=83607&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post83607>here</A>.
I hope the fellow didn't anything more than his pride when he ran into the fence. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
 
 
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