Cultipacker vs Pulverizer

[taborekle]

I'd look at a tiller for this sort of application. Tillers can gind up the soil to remove clods of dirt. I have a small Land Pride reversing tiller and it's amazing how fine it grinds up the soil.

My father-in-law has been a tabaco farmer for 30 years, and never had one. So when I bought my tractor and tiller, he wanted to take it for a test drive. He's been very pleased with it.

Check out these videos at the Land Pride site. The competitive one shows how finely ground up the soil is.

LP Media Library

 

[N80]

I think a tiller would do a nice job. the amount of rocks I have concerns me a bit but I know there are lots of folks using tillers in the area. I'm afraid that a tiller isn't in the budget right now though. Again, maybe if I found a used one cheap I'd go for it.

 

[taborekle]

I think a tiller would do a nice job. the amount of rocks I have concerns me a bit but I know there are lots of folks using tillers in the area. I'm afraid that a tiller isn't in the budget right now though. Again, maybe if I found a used one cheap I'd go for it.

Speaking of tillering and rocks, the tiller that I bought had a sacrificial bolt in it's top end that was only 6mm. I bought a dozen of them and found that they broke quite often in my rocky soil. It got to be quite a pain to break bolt, stop tillering, raise tiller, get off, put in new shear bolt, tighten, and then restart. I complained to my local tractor dealer and they agree'd to upgrade my tiller to a slip clutch model. I would pay for the parts and they would supply all the labor for free to make me happy. I just tried it yesterday and think it works great. If you -do- wind up looking for a tiller, try to get one with a slip clutch built into it.

 

[ChuckinNH]

I would not laugh at the size of the operation, but I sure wish I had your dirt. My dirt has a lot of clay in it and those clods are very hard to deal with even after a good many passes with the disk....which starts to compact things a good bit so I try not to do too many passes.

The corn grows very well in my soil so that really isn't the main problem. The problem is pushing that hand planter through the rocks and clods. Maybe the solution is just to buy a 3pt planter! Of course, I'm not sure how a real planter would handle the clods either. Planting by hand worked just fine last year, but talk about a tedious two man job!

I think a big part of my problem is also timing. If it is too dry the clods are like rocks and hard to break up. If it is too wet that are like lumps of clay. The disk might slice them, but doesn't really break them up. From past experience it seems like when the moisture content is just right the disk breaks the clods up a lot better. I just don't have a good sense of when just right is. Learning that will probably be more valuable than a cultipacker or harrow.

Clay based soils sure can be a challenge to work with at times. I agree that timing is very helpful. Actually, the soil in my pictures was / is clay based, but I've put hundreds / thousands of bushels of organic material (mostly leaves, and green crops like the rye in the pictures) in there in the past 20 years, or so, and it sure has made a difference. It used to get pretty hard, and crack when it dried out any. I've been in your part of the country, and do know that you have more of a problem with that than I did / do!

 

[charlz]

Maybe something similar to the back end of this unit:

See these around here sometimes. Seems like it might be pretty easy to build

 

[MMagis]

Based on my experience with cultipackers and that style of planter, I don't think a cultipacker will be the best answer. They help, but those planters really need a perfect seed bed. The only way I can get a seed bed that nice is multiple passes with a disk, but it takes more time than I like. A tiller would work too, but is much more expensive. I think the easiest solution would be to get another style of planter. I think you could get a one or two row planter for no more than a cultipacker, maybe less. Certainly less than a tiller.

 

[clutchcargo]

Try the cultipackerstore.com they have cultipackers and parts

 

[N80]

I thought you were joking. That's a site, thanks. Here is the actual link to it:

OMNI Mfg