How much do you till and with what

[Jnasystems]

I have about 3.5 acres I would like to put corn and pumpkins on and would like some ideas on how to till and plant it. Currently I have two tractors that could be used - a 1950 Allis WD (it has about 35 hp and a snap coupler hitch) and a Ford 1520 (23hp engine 18hp pto I think). The Allis came with a 3 bottom plow for the snap coupler, but I am not sure the Allis can pull it - I tried, but the area needs to have small stumps removed and I don't feel it was fair either way. What do you use at your place? Would this be too much for a rotary tiller?

 

[flusher]

I have about 3.5 acres I would like to put corn and pumpkins on and would like some ideas on how to till and plant it. Currently I have two tractors that could be used - a 1950 Allis WD (it has about 35 hp and a snap coupler hitch) and a Ford 1520 (23hp engine 18hp pto I think). The Allis came with a 3 bottom plow for the snap coupler, but I am not sure the Allis can pull it - I tried, but the area needs to have small stumps removed and I don't feel it was fair either way. What do you use at your place? Would this be too much for a rotary tiller?

My soil is fairly thin gravely loam (good stuff is about 6 inches thick). So I till it with an old 6.5 ft wide Towner offset disc and my 2008 Mahindra 5525 (54 hp engine, 45 hp pto, 2WD, power steering, gear tranny 8F/2R). Plant oat hay in Oct/Nov, cut and bale in May. Don't use a moldboard plow since that type of plow flips the soil. In my case a moldboard would just bury what good soil I have and bring the bad stuff to the surface.

 

[Jnasystems]

How large an area are you working?

 

[jenkinsph]

A 60" tiller with a 35hp tractor should be able to till this in 5 hours at about 1.2mph. I don't think a WD has a 3ph to match to a tiller though.

The cheapest way to do it is have someone with a larger tractor disc, or till it for you the first time. I would think you could till with a 48" tiller behind the Ford in subsequent years. I would till up the rows for planting and seeding.

 

[kubotakid USA]

save time and money,..Disc as deep as you can once, or twice and then run the tiller, or just mallbord plow it

 

[randy41]

i don't think a rotary tiller will deal with the small stumps very well. i would plow it and disk it.

 

[blueriver]

I like to turn it over with a plow, disc it and finsih with a drag harrow.

 

[wcampbell47]

Ok - this is apparently a new area for you. My first inclination would be to get as many stumps and roots out as I could so as not to damage my tillage equipment. I now have my garden clear of such things which makes it very easy to work. A backhoe could probably be used to dig the stumps out. I used a stump grinding service to remove a large stump. Since my plot had never been used as a garden I plowed to break up the hard pan and pulled out roots at the same time.

I tilled with a 48" tiller until the soil worked very easy. Before tilling now I plow up or pull out all the old plants to get rid of any disease that may have crept in. I then till thoroughly followed by spreading fertilizer. I do raised bed gardening. I have a toolbar with two 16" discs set at sharp angles to push the tilled soil into a bed. That's the method that I have developed during the 4 seasons I have been gardening.

Cheers

 

[foggy1111]

I've cleared and de-stumped almost every inch of my food plot land. I grind my stumps out with a woods 3-point grinder on my tractor....and use various implements to clear the land. I have a landscape rake and a root grapple on my loader.

For tillage I do NOT use a moldboard plow.....as in my case I only have a few inches of good quality soil. I tried a plow early on....and found that a turning plow will bring up sand and bury my better sandy-loam soil. I typically make a few passes with a disc to insure I got all the stumps and rocks out......

Thereafter......I use a 60" King Kutter tiller with my 26PTO HP tractor. I have a JD 3320 tractor. I till about 5 to 8 acres each year. Depending on crops and rotation etc. I can till about an acre per hour.

 

[Jnasystems]

Wow, a lot of good info!! You are correct, I haven't done this before and wasn't sure a tiller made sense for that much land, but it seems it should be more than able to do the job. I do have a 3 bottom plow for an Allis Chalmers, but not sure if mine has what it takes to pull it. That being said, that and a middle buster is all the tillage equipment I have.
Based on the above info and what I currently think, here is my plan:
1. Build a bar for 5 scarifiers to be mounted on my track hoe and rip out all the stumps and rocks.
2. Buy a good subsoiler and run that over the entire plot with about a 2ft spacing.
3. Till with a 60" tiller nice and slow using the Ford.
4. Plant with a 2 row planter

I after that, I figured I could spray some kind of weed and feed via my sprayer mounted to a 4wheeler and pick by hand. Really what I want is to have hay rides through the woods to the pumpkin patch and a small corn maze. Does this sound like it could work? What changes should I make to the plan?