Sharpen the tiller tines?

[chriswheeler]

I've got a old Howard HR8 that I use for weed control about twice a year on 5 acres here in NV. Blade set is good for about 4 years before they are to worn to use anymore. About $300 a set localy to replace. In Napa area ground is soft and somewhat lofty as I remember ?? quite soft. When you do the math, quite a expensive way to cut weeds. My blades self sharpen going through my soil over here which is mostly DG. Can't imagine the same self sharpening thing not happening over there ?? When I get through tilling you can almost shave with the tines they are so sharp. Bet your blade set should last much longer in your soil. With tall grass and stuff that is stringy, think I'd opt for discing it all. The disc just makes it a pain to drive through after. Van sold me a 5' disc at cost along with the YM 3000 package. ( $500 ?? ) Something like that might just be the ticket if you don't mind the rough ground after. ( I want to keep mine, be hard to replace at that price )
Chris

 

[skipdow]

Have you considered sheep or goats to keep the grass and weeds down? I have sheep and depending on how many I put in a pasture I can have a golf putting green if I leave them at it. Never a blade of grass longer than 1 1/2 " Oh yah and free fertilizer too:thumbsup: It looks like your trees would be tall enough to avoid them eating your apples.

 

[284 International]

Have you considered sheep or goats to keep the grass and weeds down?

Another orchard owner a ways down from me had that idea. He lost almost 1/3 of his trees before he realized the goats were preferentially eating the tree bark, new shoots, and leaves to the foxtails and other weeds. I don't know that would happen in an apple orchard, but I wouldn't want to try it on mine; I'm pretty sure I know how it would end.

 

[California]

...My blades self sharpen going through my soil over here which is mostly DG. Can't imagine the same self sharpening thing not happening over there ?? ... Bet your blade set should last much longer in your soil. With tall grass and stuff that is stringy, think I'd opt for discing it all. ... Something like that might just be the ticket if you don't mind the rough ground after. Chris

This soil has a little decomposed sandstone (I think that's what it is) which is a little abrasive, but its not near as abrasive as that diamond-hard decomposed Sierra granite you have over there. I don't think I would see noticeable wear (or self-sharpening) in the few hours/year that I till. And Van was good to me, too, she included a full set of replacement tines with the tiller I got there. Way irrelevant: - Summer 1961 I sat for hours, days, all summer, and watched the contractor blast and excavate the granite backbone (literally) of the Sierras to build modern Donner Pass above Donner Lake. Digging out the blasted material with bulldozers and scrapers has to be one of the most wearing projects ever done with Caterpillar equipment. It was a continual screech of hardfaced steel on the equipment against even harder granite blasting-rubble up to huge boulders, as they cut into the granite to build that constant grade up from the bug station to the summit. I can still hear the screeching. It was fascinating to watch. Anyhow, back on topic ...

I probably should disc as a first pass. I'm just trying to do everything in a single tiller pass, if possible.

Skipdow, I think 284 has it about right re sheep or goats. There are a couple of neglected orchards near here with the foliage oddly shaved from the mature trees an even 6 ft off the ground. The trees look like umbrellas. There are no short trees. I don't want to risk this to my orchard. As it is I see the deer out there every day eating the buds off the trees.

 

[sixdogs]

Another orchard owner a ways down from me had that idea. He lost almost 1/3 of his trees before he realized the goats were preferentially eating the tree bark, new shoots, and leaves to the foxtails and other weeds. I don't know that would happen in an apple orchard, but I wouldn't want to try it on mine; I'm pretty sure I know how it would end.

Yeah, with one massive and final "Goat Roast Festival" celebration among the local landowners and shepherds.

 

[clemsonfor]

As I showed in that backhoe photo, later in the year there's no moisture near the surface. This is dry farming relying on subsurface water and fog from the nearby ocean; we don't irrigate. And digging out stumps, I don't find significant roots in the first 12 inches of soil. I don't think there's much in the top 12 inches to harm by discing.

This photo shows how weeds are minimized by discing as close to the trees as possible. (I took the photo 2008 when we watered random replacement trees near the house. More recently with more new trees I put a watering rig on a trailer).

My neighbor is a third-generation orchardist on his home parcel nearby, and he considers it 'common practice' to disc as close to the trees as possible without gouging them. He tills/sprays/harvests my orchard commercially, while I am responsible for getting new trees started, removing stumps, and the other peripheral projects. His style of close discing has been the accepted practice for 100+ years here so far as I know.

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Playing devils advocate here. As i just said i have no clue about most of fruit tree growing nor farming of it. But past practices do not dictate the correct way. Look at what cotton farming did here in the south, we have gullies so deep you can put a freight train in them and not see them when you stand back 30 feet!! BUT the fact that he is still doing it today with all the reasearch and modern farming knowledge you would like to beleive that it is an "accepted " thing.

 

[clemsonfor]

My buddies tiller i borrow has tines that are about as sharp as a set of lawnmower blades after a season of mowing. I mean you can see an edge but there blunt ish. I would not want it to hit me at speed im sure it would cut your hand off! But they are far from "shaving" sharp. But he has clay loamy soil that he uses it in and i borrow it and use it for about 20 mins each year to till my clay soil.

 

[Bartcephus]

Why not get someone with a ZTR mower or even use a hay mower where the offset allows closer mowing to the trees?

 

[California]

Why not get someone with a ZTR mower or even use a hay mower where the offset allows closer mowing to the trees?

If I converted from tillage to just mowing, I might consider a specialty mower. But what I am trying to do now is knock down weeds that the 70 hp tractor was too clumsy to reach. Here's a 2007 photo showing the same thing as my first photo at the top of this thread, weeds that the big tractor missed. The 2012 growth that I want to till is more dense than this old photo. (This old picture was to illustrate my first pass crosswise with the 4 ft disc.)

And here's one reason I think tillage of some kind is needed. Gophers build mounds around every tree and I want to disrupt them as much as possible. Undisturbed, these gopher mounds around the trunks get higher each year.

Here's a winter photo where the gopher mounds are more visible.

 

[clemsonfor]

Gun will take care of the gophers. People would love to shoot them if you let them. Unless that is illegal too out in California?