Disc for JD 5303

[deere5105]

If the 6' with smaller dia blades is cutting better than the 8' then I would say that the angle that the gangs are set at are not equal. As in the 6' is set at max angle and the 8' is much less. I don't think that anyone uses an offset disk for covering their seeded crop. An offset disk usually seems to cut deeper although that can be controlled with your position control and the angle of the gangs.

A tiller would give you the best seed bed I would think, but I don't know if that is really what you need. Steve (jenkinsph) is absolutely sold on tillers and I agree that a tiller does a wonderful job, just don't know if it needs to be that good for you.

If the areas that you are going to be doing are going to be done every year, I would go with a disk, the widest that you can comfortably move from point to point with your rig.

Good luck

I thought so too on the gang adjustment, but when I look at them they look about the same. The blades on the 8' unit have significantly more wear on them. I thought that might have some factor too. Your assessment of the seed bed is correct. The food plots are typically planted with a rye grass, wheat and oats mixture. The rye grass will grow on top of the ground for the most part. I do not require a premium seed bed for this. I also do not need to lose the ability to lightly cover. Helps speed things up to be able to use the one implement for both needs. In the garden I can make a couple of trips over it and drag it and end up with a suitable seed bed. We plant a few row crops such as sweet corn, beans and peas. I usually have a smaller spot for tomatoes, squash and such closer to the house to pick fresh. I am leaning toward the 22" serrated blade 3PT disk for the uses/needs I have. I will have to see how the 8' loads on my trailer. If it does well, that may be the route I go. We used a King Kutter tiller once to try to break up the yards for reseeding and seemed to take a long time versus running the disk through it. Thanks for the input from everyone.

 

[deere5105]

Curiousity got the best of me and I hooked up to the 8' 3PT to see how it fit on the trailer. I was suprised to find that I was able to load tractor with disk attached and still have room to raise the ramps and pin them normally. I curled the bucket to get a little further on the trailer but all in all it fit much better than I expected. This tends to make me lean more toward an 8' unit. Thanks again for the recommendations.

 

[jenkinsph]

I looked into a Frontier 1508 disk with 22"blades on 9" spacings all blades notched, IIRC it was $6400? or close to it. This would be a good pull type unit. I also had a Deere 100 3pt disk 8' with 20" blades that was pretty good.
The pull type disks do a better job imho.

I think most of the difference between using a tiller and a disk is the disk is pulled faster at about 6 mph for three passes and the tiller is pulled once at 1.5 to 2 mph. The disk may be slightly faster but doesn't pulverize the ground as well as the tiller. One big advantage of the tiller is it is very compact compared to a disk. I move my equipment around atleast weekly moving from job to job, for me the disk would be a pain.

I should point out that I think both a tiller with large diameter rotor and a disk with large diameter blades and high weight will both do a good job. A disk is only slightly faster than a tiller though and most of it is a psychological issue, running a disk at the higher speed repeatedly seems to make most people think it is alot faster than a single pass at low speed with the tiller.

Good luck with your choice.:thumbsup:

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Steve, I have found that it is not necessary to disc the same area 2-3 times to get the results that I am looking for. If and when I do disc twice, usually several weeks apart and if the moisture content is just right, the ground is as good or maybe even a bit better than my tiller will do. Weeds & grass get covered vs all chopped up and mixed through out the soil. Now I know that part of this has to do with type and size of the disk being used, but with a heavier disc, I'm not so sure that the multiple times of disking is really needed. But then again it depends on a persons circumstances and desired results.

Don't get me wrong, tillers are great for the right area and purpose. I feel that for larger areas disking is the way to go. You use your tiller a lot, how often do you have to change out your blades? The reason I ask is that I have not used my tiller for what I would consider a lot and yet there has been noticeable wear of the blades. If I were to use it as much as I disc, I fear that it would plain be worn out.

 

[jenkinsph]

Brian,
My tiller blades seem to hold up well haven't had to change them yet. But I have changed out disk blades and it seems they always break on the inside of the gang. I am sure though that for large areas that the disk blades will last longer though. I think changing the tines on a tiller is easy enough though.

I suspect that if you are using this for large fields and often that a disk is a good choice but I think tillers are vastly underrated. I have disked ground similar if not identical to the OP's and can tell you it is much harder to work than what you or I have to deal with. Running a chisel plow behind both my 4020 and a larger Case 1370 was a tough pull. Lots of surface tension with the heavy clay ground.

I might add that as we have discussed before implements need to be good models to start with, a good quality heavy duty tiller and a good heavy duty disk. We both know you have to have the better models to get good penetration and depth. It seems that most people have never used a good tiller and form their opinions on the basis of a cheap one.

 

[deere5105]

You both make good points to the advantages of the different implements under different conditions. Steve, for working in confined spaces such as yard work I doubt a tiller could be beat. Brian, for working in fields with longer straight runs where a finished seed bed is not required I think the disk would be hard to beat. We are occasionally running over small bushes/trees(not sure the species) that grow over the summer in the plots. Even when cutting with rotary cutter first, the root system is still in place. The one time we used a tiller some of the teeth/blades came off in the hard ground. Not sure how good the tiller would do in root systems. The disk would just roll over and move on where I figure the tiller would thrash around when it comes in contact. The tiller makes me think there would be more maintenance to keep it in good working order under the expected use. I am going to attempt to attach some prices I have come across online. I have not verified any of this locally, but figured it is a good starting point. The Howse unit seems to be the best deal going with the DHT24022 being the best fit. This is actually a 9' unit and compares well to the similar Frontier and Tufline units. Any thoughts or advice on these? We have a Howse rotary that has held up very well and Howse is a local manufacturer. They are located in the northern part of the state. Couldn't see how to attach here so will try the paste:

#1) Howse DHT20022, 7.5', 1017 lbs, 20-20", 22" optional, 3" squ, ball bearings, 9" spacing $1704

#2) Howse DHT24022, 9.0', 1110 lbs, 24-20", 22" optional, 3" squ, ball bearings, 9" spacing $1925

#3) Frontier #1396, 8.0', 1256 lbs, 20-22", 3"x4" squ., ball bearings, 9" spacing $3705

#4) Frontier #1296, 8.0', 968 lbs, 20-20", 3" squ., ball bearings, 9" spacing $2841

#5) Tufline TL43-92022, 8.0', 1422 lbs, 20-22", 3"x4", ball bearings, 9" spacing, $3775

#6) Tufline THF92022, 8.0', 1145 lbs, 20-22", 3", ball bearings, 9" spacing, $3347

 

[jenkinsph]

deere 5105,

Don't forget the scrapers and add ons, as this will bring the Frontier 1396 with 22" blades on 9" spacings to $4720 msrp. As an example.

IIRC, Tuffline builds the Frontier disks in this size range according to my Deere dealer. Their are lots of good and poor disks good luck getting the right one. Can't comment on the Howse, never used them.


I wish all I had to worry about was hitting roots, often when tilling I will come across rocks the size of a gallon milk jug, these make the tiller jump up. But it keeps going. Most of the major manufacturers of tillers build some large models that will till about a foot deep and 12 to 16 ft wide. Need lots of hp for these units along with a fat wallet. I don't think these are made for small lawn areas.



The disks you have listed should be a good match for your tractor, I used a 3020 with an 8' Deere 100 disk and a 4020 with a chisel plow ahead of this in Pike county MS. this worked well enough. My dad had a larger Case 1370 and a Deere 450 crawler to deal with the new ground, I bought the 4020 and 3020.

My dad was runnning about 125 to 150 cow calf pairs at the time and we had to upgrade all of the old fields to keep the feed flowing. I sometimes wish I had been a little older when this was all going on I could have been more help to my dad and enjoyed ot more too. Hard to keep a young man interested in a farm sometimes.:ashamed:

My point in all of this is that you need to compare all of these implements on equal quality. There are small cheap tools that are a waste of time and money, but there are good tools to use that will last a long time. Make sure you are making the right comparisons.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Steve, any idea why those disc blades broke? As with anything, there are different qualities and thicknesses of the disc blades. Other than our 12' disc before we rebuilt it, I have never broken a disc. When both the 12 & 8 footers were rebuilt, we used the thickest 22" serrated blades that we could get. Have had no problems with them. As far as the quality of tillers, I can't say, as that I have not actually looked at any other ones other than my CCM T-SMR-160. My guess is that it is a mid line quality tiller and works fine for the small areas that I use it for.

deere5105, look at the weight of these and you will see that the prices pretty much coincide with the weights. I have not looked these up, I am assuming they are tandem discs.

 

[jenkinsph]

Steve, any idea why those disc blades broke? As with anything, there are different qualities and thicknesses of the disc blades. Other than our 12' disc before we rebuilt it, I have never broken a disc. When both the 12 & 8 footers were rebuilt, we used the thickest 22" serrated blades that we could get. Have had no problems with them. As far as the quality of tillers, I can't say, as that I have not actually looked at any other ones other than my CCM T-SMR-160. My guess is that it is a mid line quality tiller and works fine for the small areas that I use it for.

deere5105, look at the weight of these and you will see that the prices pretty much coincide with the weights. I have not looked these up, I am assuming they are tandem discs.

Brian,
One of the things that would crack a disk blade was a buried lightered pine stump, not every day occurance but too often for my liking. We always used the best blades available but some of the used equipment over the years were lower in quality with thinner blades. I suspect that is where I learned the difference in cheap vs. good.

The disks listed above are tandem design.


If you look at the SR 210 or SR240 tillers it would be a more fair comparison to an eight foot disk and in the same price range.

 

[deere5105]

I looked at the CCM tillers and they appear to be well built and reasonably priced. At this point I am leaning toward staying with a disk. I have never used any with the scrapers mentioned above although I understand their purpose. I have had no issues with material sticking to the blades so intended to pass on them as an option. I see where the Tufline and Frontier are comparably weighted and priced. When looking at the Howse it appears comparable too, just less expensive. I have looked at some others that I do not consider an option. The Howse unit, according to specs., appears to be built of like materials and the weights reflect that. What am I missing that would make the more expensive units more desireable? I would be curious to hear both of your opinions on the Howse unit. You can see them along with price by looking up Watts Brothers Distributing and go to whole goods. This is a local company for me. They are about 10 to 15 miles away.