Tiller 3pt tiller usage/effectiveness

[bilrus61]

On the time/expense/fuel scale you'll need to add "mow" to the tiller side. Even small wisps that are 2 feet tall will wrap around the tiller rotar and have to be laborously hand removed unless you mow your field before tilling.

Most tillers are foward rotation, as in the tines turn the same direction as the tires on the tractor. Many users however like the reverse rotation tines. These dig deeper on one pass and leave a finer topsoil. However they are not without issues. They are usually more expensive and some folks say they hang in root/rocks instead of just "climbing" over them. I use the foward rotation mostly because I think it gets a better long term kill on the weeds. Chops down on the weeds instead of lifting them up. To each his own.

Tillers come with two differnt side drives. Chain or Gear. Most heavy duty tillers use a gear drive. My 660 John Deere has a chain and its never gave any issues and I've used it lots. With that kind of horse power you could run a very VERY wide tiller that would really cut the time over a smaller one. Big tillers are big money however and it would be up to you and your bank if in the long run there would be any advantage in going the tilling route.

 

[dlauffenburger]

Gentlemen,

thank you for your time and advice. I will look around and see if someone has a demo or rental unit to try, the prices are a little steep for what seems like a good unit but if they are effective it may pay for itself in time and fuel savings in the long run.

Thanks again for your time.
Dave

 

[MMagis]

If tillers offered any advantage to farming operations, farmers would be using them. 15 acres is on the small side for farming, but still large enough that a tiller is too slow to make sense. A farmer can make a pass with both a chisel plow and a disk in less time than one pass with a tiller. This uses less fuel, less time, and less wear on the tractor. Also worth mentioning, tillers make great seed beds, for gardens. For larger fields, they often fluff the soil too much resulting in crust formation or causing run off washouts.
It sounds like maybe a larger disk would solve your issues, and pulling the drag behind your disk also cuts down on the work.

 

[skspurling]

I know some organic gardeners and people who do truck gardening. I have heard the thing about excessive tilling burning up the soil. I think it all has to do with the types of soil you are working with. If you have a gravely loamy soil, you could very well burn it up by churning it with a tiller. On a heavy clay soil like I have, and I gather the OP has, tilling is really the only way to break up the large chunks of clay for a decent seed bed. Just don't do it too much, and you should be able to make the nutrients available without destroying the soil by mixing in so much air it buns up the nutrients. It also exposes more of the clay's surface so that it can soak up more water.
Now some of these guys are talking about no-till food plots. That's different from human food plots. The way I see it is there are a couple of different ways of seeding that most people use. One is to make a food plot for local wild life. That you don't care about weed propagation and grasses competing with your crop. Disk it and seed it with a drill or spreader.
The second type of tillage is what a lot of corn and grain farmers do now to prevent erosion. Typical no-till is to just disc down the stubble and loosen just the top a little, then you plant and spray the heck out of it with roundup. I personally think it's kind of stupid, and just a ploy from the chemical companies to sell more herbicide. I guess it just takes too much work to do it the old way and prevent erosion, but I can't help but think there is just something wrong with the combination of GE hybrid seed, and the keyed herbicide that is only sold by one of a handful of Agri-corps. Too beholden to the whims of a company you have no control over. Let's hope they don't do something stupid that kills your crops, because you can bet their lawyers are better than yours.
The third kind is to totally turn the soil over, break it up a bit, and then plant. You give your crops a head start over the grasses by turning them under, but they will return. You also have to keep the lay of the land in mind so you don't have your top soil washing away. I remember when I was a kid, all the enviro-people were crying that we only have 1/2" of top soil left. I'd go dig in the yard or field, and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about. Apparently, it was the plains states where they roll over millions of acres at a time. They all went no-till, and I don't think they loose nearly as much as the rotting stubble puts back in the dirt. They all ran off to make up another crisis.
The tiller is mainly for your third kind of tillage. They don't get as deep as a plow, and they are guilty of causing hard pan. I hear plowing causes hard pan too. You have to break up the hard pan with a middle buster or chisel plow. On a small plot, I would not worry about it. You could garden up to a few acres with a tiller, but I think a disc and plow are best for larger plots. I'd go gentile with a tiller, but I think clay soils can benefit greatly from the use of one to help release what they hold. Once or twice a year isn't going to hurt anything, especially if you are tilling under organics and trace elements to augment the soil. The plow and disc don't mix things in very good, just turn things over.

 

[Bobby R]

I used a 48" King Kutter PTO tiller with a little 21 HP Bolens diesel tractor I once had. I tilled up a garden spot about 1/2 acre of new ground and only had to go over it twice. I used to use a breaking plow and then disc it which usually took about 3 to 4 passes with the disc to get it like I wanted it. To me, the PTO tiller is a time saver and does a much better job, not to mention allows you to work in closer quarters, as someone else has already mentioned.

 

[MMagis]

. The plow and disc don't mix things in very good, just turn things over.

That's not true at all.

The second type of tillage is what a lot of corn and grain farmers do now to prevent erosion. Typical no-till is to just disc down the stubble and loosen just the top a little, then you plant and spray the heck out of it with roundup. I personally think it's kind of stupid, and just a ploy from the chemical companies to sell more herbicide. I guess it just takes too much work to do it the old way and prevent erosion, but I can't help but think there is just something wrong with the combination of GE hybrid seed, and the keyed herbicide that is only sold by one of a handful of Agri-corps. Too beholden to the whims of a company you have no control over. Let's hope they don't do something stupid that kills your crops, because you can bet their lawyers are better than yours.

I don't think you have a complete understanding of no till planting.

 

[Rancher Ed]

I see a lot of post/advertisements for 3pt tillers, but i was under the impression that they were primarily for light duty garden use. I am not familiar with tillers so please bear with me for a few questions.


We plant approx. 15 acres of corn and oats and i am curious if the new tillers would cut down on fuel and time required to prepare the fields. Currently we plow, disc, and then drag the fields which ends up requiring going over the fields 3 to 6 times. If the new tillers are capable of this much use i would think that even if you have to go slower, one time through the field would still end up being faster and cheaper.

Are the new tillers capable of being used for larger tracts of ground?
Has anyone used a tiller for this much acerage? If so how was the experience?
How well do the tillers hold up?
Obviously fields will have more rocks than a garden, so how do the tillers
handle rocks?

Any info and recommendations will be appreciated.

Dave

I don't know much about tilling larger areas (we have a 54" tiller we use in our gardens) but I believe the member Edward. S uses large tillers on his farm and he could give you some advice.

Ed

 

[Edward. S]

I see a lot of post/advertisements for 3pt tillers, but i was under the impression that they were primarily for light duty garden use. I am not familiar with tillers so please bear with me for a few questions.


We plant approx. 15 acres of corn and oats and i am curious if the new tillers would cut down on fuel and time required to prepare the fields. Currently we plow, disc, and then drag the fields which ends up requiring going over the fields 3 to 6 times. If the new tillers are capable of this much use i would think that even if you have to go slower, one time through the field would still end up being faster and cheaper.

Are the new tillers capable of being used for larger tracts of ground?
Has anyone used a tiller for this much acerage? If so how was the experience?
How well do the tillers hold up?
Obviously fields will have more rocks than a garden, so how do the tillers
handle rocks?

Any info and recommendations will be appreciated.

Dave

Tillers can be used for large areas of ground. It just takes time.
I have tilled about maybe 10 acres with my C250 and with my JD6715.

It was a slow job but it got the stuff done.
If you buy a good tiller, like Maschio you wont have many problems.

Just make sure your PTO shaft doesn't break from the slipping on the clutch. Just tighten that up lots but not seized.

My E180 I had that for about 14 Years, it was used heavily about 8 years ago. But now she justs sits and waits for spring work.

The rocks will just tumble around in the chamber of the tiller if you know what I mean. Large rocks you might want to clear them. They give your blades a good grinding. You can probably get away with small rocks but not big rocks. Your tiller might jump up from the rock a bit. I hit a few pieces of old logs in my ground.

Just didn't find them. I didn't have a problem with them. I used to have a Terranova TC205 which is a re badged Maschio C205 (same company just different names). That lasted me a good 8 years till she got sold also I burnt the clutch on the PTO shaft. Wasn't a expensive fix but it costed a few dollars out of the wallet and got my self the C250 on my 6715.

 

[skspurling]

That's not true at all.




I don't think you have a complete understanding of no till planting.

I may not. This is just my observation. I left the farm before all this no-till stuff started up. If you could explain my error, I'd be happy for the correction. I still don't think a plow and disc mix things in as well. Just from the general function of how they work. The plow flips the first 4-12 inches of dirt, and then the disc cuts the turned over chunks up. The tiller takes smaller "bites", and pulls them through the soil, pulverizing and blending it with anything else you are incorporating into it. You won't burn up your soil plowing and discing, is my understanding, because you aren't doing this level of "mixing" with the air.

 

[MMagis]

I may not. This is just my observation. I left the farm before all this no-till stuff started up. If you could explain my error, I'd be happy for the correction. I still don't think a plow and disc mix things in as well. Just from the general function of how they work. The plow flips the first 4-12 inches of dirt, and then the disc cuts the turned over chunks up. The tiller takes smaller "bites", and pulls them through the soil, pulverizing and blending it with anything else you are incorporating into it. You won't burn up your soil plowing and discing, is my understanding, because you aren't doing this level of "mixing" with the air.

No till involves no tillage at all, the seed is planted in the previous years stubble. Herbicide is applied at the same time, though it doesn't have to be glyphsate or require special seed. However, that's what most folks use. With no till, there's usually less herbicide used than traditional tillage methods, and glyphosate is certainly safer than most other herbicides.
A good ag disk will turn and mix the soil very well, without all the fluff that comes from a tiller. Though it appears the tiller is mixing better, it's only mixing more. If that makes sense.