RX7320 owners....

[THEPARTYHOUND]

Hey fellas, I'm trying to get an idea of the size of chisel plow that 7320 would pull. Perhaps a turnover plow as well, if that has been your experience. This will be in moist hard packed clay. I'm kinda putting the cart before the horse here. I plan to pull the trigger on a new 7320 as soon as my current tractor sells. I'm looking at plows now and would like to find a plow that matches the tractor. Does anyone have anyone have any pertinent experience?
ETA: I am also wondering about attaching a post pounder to this tractor. My JD has a port that I was able to thread a discharge hose from the pounder into so as the pounder dropped, the fluid would rush out and return to circulation. Is the 7320 equipped with anything similar?

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

Not too many RX7320 owners plowing with theirs?

 

[woolyAcres]

I haven't pulled a chisel plow or any other type of plow. I can say that I used my RX7320 to pull a 12' transport disk through heavy clay soil with lots and lots of sod. Didn't want to spray so we just ran the discs over and over it for a few weeks. You could stall the tractor if you dropped the discs all the way down in some really wet stuff but I think overall the tractor did a great job.

I don't see why this machine couldn't pull 3-14" plow. I'd love to have a set of those.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

"I don't see why this machine couldn't pull 3-14" plow. I'd love to have a set of those."

I was looking at a 3 bottom rollover a few hours from me. Think it was a 3-16. Also was looking at a 4 bottom that looked to be in better shape and was a bit cheaper. One difference between a plow and that disk is the plow will actually suck the back end down providing more traction, whereas the disk relies only on the weight of the tractor.
Hopefully someone will chime in that has pulled a plow with theirs.

 

[LouNY]

I don't have a Kioti,
but I have plowed a bit.
With 70 Hp you shouldn't have any trouble with 3-16's,
you should be able to handle 4-16's I pulled 4-16's with a Farmall 560.
I would lean towards the rollover plow, it will save a lot of time and you will
have less headland running to do and also you will have fewer dead and back furrows to take care of.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

It looks like that Farmall weighs in around 6700 lbs and has a ballasted weight of about 9500 lbs. Im not sure where the Kioti lands for weight after ballast, but it starts off in the ballpark of 6200, plus a 1900+ lb loader so after the rears are filled it should be a pretty good comparison.

If you would, can you explain to me dead furrows? Back furrows?

Also, I believe that I learned somewhere that rear tire spacing needs to somehow match the plow setup? Is that so I'm not dropping a tire into what I just plowed and packing it back down again?

 

[LouNY]

When you plow with mouldboard plows, you should drive in a straight line they don't handle turns well.
You line up in your field and make a pass, the front plow bottom is turning dirt over on your first pass it is getting put on top of the ground,
your second pass that front bottom is turning the dirt over in the empty furrow your last bottom left.
Using a one way plow one option is to start in the middle of your field, make your first pass, make a u turn,
then start your second pass, with your front bottom casting the dirt up next to the one from the first pass.
This creates a back furrow where you have turned 2 furrows of dirt up on top of unplowed ground.
Your next passes you have an empty furrow for the front bottom to lay the dirt into.
A dead furrow is the opposite if you went to one side of your field and plowed down turning the ground towards the outside of the field,
at the end of the field you travel up to the other side and plow down again casting your soil to the outside of the field and repeat till your field is finished when you meet in the center of your field you will leave a ditch or dead furrow.

Yes when plowing you will normally need to space your rear tire to travel in the empty furrow from the previous pass.
A narrow plow and a wide tire can create problems.
Also you can set some plows up to where both your wheels ride on unplowed soil, it's not real common on the smaller tractors.
The nice thing with the turnover plows is that you can plow with less headland traveling and usually less dead furrows with carefully
laying out your fields.

Most places have switched from mouldboard plows to chisel plows or no-till.
But a good job of plowing and harrowing will dress up a field nicely and leave a smooth unrutted field that is nice to take hay off of.
Hope this makes sense to you, seems long winded to me.
Lou

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

No, that does make sense and not long winded at all. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain it clearly to me! This has been a question I've had for some time now, and now that you spell it out it seems kinda obvious!

My neighbor makes his living farming and talking to him he suggested a chisel plow, and even offered to come do it with his larger equipment. I have some cheat grass (dunno if that is a technical name, but that's what its's called around here) and cactus that I would like to plow under. I'm very new to this, so anyone who has been doing this for a living is gonna know a lot more than me the best way to go about it, but in my mind turning the soil over and putting those cheat grass seeds too deep to start growing again would go a long way toward cleaning up my field. My next plan after turning over the field was to use a disk to break up the chunks left by the mouldboard plow. Hopefully after several passes with the disk, the soil is leveled out and ready for planting.
One other consideration I may have is that this field is not nice and rectangular, but rather odd shaped. I could see how maybe a chisel plow may be a bit easier to work with on an oddly shaped field. Also, I have plenty of gophers to contend with, as well their mounds. I opened up gopher hunting to friends around the area and there were over 400 confirmed kills last summer on only one 20 acre field, and it didn't seem to even make a dent! I need to get started earlier this year before they get old enough to breed!

 

[LouNY]

I don't know the germination characteristics of cheat grass of hand,
my first thought would be Round Up and then a week latter have the neighbor chisel plow it good and deep,
maybe twice over at diagonals.
The reason for diagonals is to reduce the rough ride that occurs in a right angle second pass.
After chiseling to break it up a couple of passes with a disk, and it should be ready to plant. Disking a field to much will actually pack it down and create what we call a plow pack, which can actually hold water in the root area of crops and drown them.
I don't know your long term plans for your field, but spraying and seeding to winter wheat or rye could get you a field ready for use.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

I have year round live water flowing through the corner of my property, but do not have rights to it
There is water at at about 2-3 ft. deep under ground, so I hope to find something that will sub irrigate and take advantage of the high water table. I really want to grow sain foin and get my pastures set up to rotation graze them so that I don't have to cut and bale it, and could hopefully grow it out so the cows can feed off it through most of the winter. I have a deal going with a seed guy that does not know if this ground will be good for sain foin or not, but is willing to supply the seed to plant 5 acres to find out.
I have another 60 acres of hilly bench ground that I plan to NoTill wild rye into. If I can get that to take, and others in the area have, then that would significantly improve the production of very unproductive ground.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

Just curious, were you suggesting putting in rye winter wheat this spring making the field ready for use the following spring?

 

[LouNY]

no it would be for next year

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

Lou, Im not sure if you saw my other reply talking about wanting to plant sain foin. I made two replies and it was the last one on the previous page. Would I want to put in a cover crop prior to the sain foin? If my understanding is correct, the cover crop is to have something growing so weeds don't come in, correct?

 

[LouNY]

I had to read up on sain foin it is a grass that we don't have out here, interesting.

http://agresearch.montana.edu/wtarc/producerinfo/agronomy-nutrient-management/Sainfoin/NRCSPLantGuide.pdf

Yes a cover crop is normally used for erosion control, or green manure out here.
Our normal practice is to no-till thru a killed off cover crop in the spring.
We have mowed and chopped or round baled rye grass off before spraying and drilling in a new seeding.

It was interesting to readup on the Sainfoin apparently most varieties have poor regrowth after harvesting, also the desire to not pasture till the second season.

We chisel plow fields that get packed or rutted during harvest, we haven't mouldboard plowed in over 20 years. We are in stoney ground and the chisel plows bring up fewer rocks to pick.

When we bring in a new hay meadow it's mainly Brome, Carney, Orchard grasses with a touch of clover or trefoil at times.

Good luck with your fields

Lou

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

That Sainfoin is a pretty tough crop! I had read that it does not regrow well after the first cutting as well, but it grows a lot more forage than it's closest competitor in our area, alfalfa. There is a guy that lives a few miles up the bench from me, right up against the mountain, that grows this. He does get a couple of cuttings from his every year.
The one thing I liked about it is that it keeps coming back year after year after year. There are 50 year old stands still going strong that started off as testing fields out there! Also, it doesn't need to be fertilized, another bonus! And what sold me on it is that I can turn the cows out on it and not have to worry about them bloating which means that I dont have to cut and bale it, I can just let them graze it. As yet another bonus, it has naturally occurring tannins in it that may not actually kill parasites (such as worms) but does help to inhibit growth.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

Well, today was the day. I pulled the trigger on a 7320 this morning. Dealer is gonna add the third function, cd player with blue tooth, fill the tires, and a couple other odds and ends. I should have it here sometime next week. I'm pretty stoked! This will be for a powershuttle cab, no creeper gear, 3 rear remotes, filled tires, 3rd function on the loader, at 42.5k for anyone shopping.

 

[woolyAcres]

Congrats. I think you got a good deal. Remind me, what are you going to be pulling with this? I've been keeping my eyes open for a set of 3-16 roll-over plows... Like a unicorn around here.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

I don't have it yet, but if it hasn't sold by the time I can afford it, I'm gonna pick up a 4-14 I found down in Idaho. I think there was also a 3-16 down there, both turnover plows.

 

[woolyAcres]

Sounds like a good match to your machine. I hope they are still available. Let us know how she pulls.

 

[THEPARTYHOUND]

I'm thinking it should be a good match too. If its too hard of a pull, I can always remove a plow and pull 3 of them.