6ft Rotory Tiller not getting job done

[johng143]

For smaller patches I notice my rototiller has a much easier time cutting sod and matted weed If the sod has had a glysophate treatment 3 or 4 weeks earlier.

For hard sod or matted weed fields discing is the way to start out me thinks.

 

[bigtiller]

That is mis information at it's best... (worst)

99% of my tiller jobs are reclaiming old ground, pastures ect., anyone "claiming" that tillers weren't designed to do this, is just showing their ignorance about tillers.

Perhaps they have only seen cheapo tillers, well built tillers can and will take on ANY ground, including ground with rocks in it. This field was a VERY old pasture full of all kinds of junk and rocks,

Today that tiller has over 2,000 acres on it, and still has the original chain, sprockets, bearing ect...

This site has more mis information about tillers and how to use them than any other I've ever been to. lol

SR

You're absolutely right, that's been my experience also. After 25 years of custom tilling with a <25 hp tractor, I never needed to plow or disc the ground first.

 

[stoillion]

You can see from the responses that some have tilled un-turned ground and some would never till without breaking up the soil first. Are some right and some wrong? I think it all depends on the soil that you are working. To illustrate with extremes, assume you want to till a sandy beach, do you need to plow it first to break it up? Absolutely not. In fact it would be a waste of fuel. Next go to a limestone ledge. You will never till it. You would have to start with the proper equipment to break up the limestone and pulverize it before you do anything with it. Our soils all fall somewhere in the middle. With clays, moisture content is also critical. If its too wet its pore space becomes much reduced, it becomes practically impervious to air and water, and becomes very "sticky". When too dry, it becomes hard and dense. If plowed too dry, great clods are turned up which are difficult to work into a good seedbed.

What you are preparing the land for is also important. If you are planting lawn grass you don't want to go very deep or you will be fighting uneven settlement and rough lawn. 2" of pulverized soil is perfect for a lawn but not for a corn crop. I'm in east central Kansas and we have a lot of clay in the soil. A farmer near my house converted a number of pastures to crop ground. I think what he did was great for this area and our clays. Round 1 - Deep Soil Ripping! Google it for its benefits. This also loosened the soil for Round 2 - Disk Plow. He let this set over the winter. Round 3 - Disk Plow. Round 4 - Plant. Now he only uses a no-till drill to plant.

I love rototillers and the way they pulverize and prepare the soil but they don't go very deep. For crop preparation its really better to start with something that will go deeper to start with and then the tiller will work fine for several years. Growing up in SD we used to hire the neighbor to plow the field with a moldboard plow every 4 or 5 years and we used a disk after the plowing and in other years. Eventually we bought a chisel plow. You could put straight shanks on for ripping and sweeps for weeding summer fallow.

 

[rgevans871]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

I would say you definitely have an adjustment problem. I have 32 HP tractor with a 5 ft. tiller from Tractor Supply. I and my son have worked up quite a few acres of sod that had probably 10 years to establish itself after the farmer renting my property went bankrupt and left all my fields just plowed. I also have a clay loam. We had to run in second gear in making the first pass and it definitely was all the tractor could handle. I was wishing for a few more HP, but never had a problem with the tiller disengaging.

 

[holladay farmer]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

1. spray to kill weeds. dry straw is easy to break up.
2. clip the weeds into small straw so they will not entangle your tiller.
3. use a breaking plow or cultivator to break the ground deep.
4. adjust your tiller sled rails lower to the ground.
Tillers are not designed to till deep nor are they efficient on virgin weeded ground. If you have followed the above recommendations, breaking the ground will be easy. It is not the fault of the clutch on the PTO.

 

[Bobrown14]

Slip clutch may be too loose. Read the manual and see how to adjust it is where I would start. Or take back to the dealer since they are new and you just bought them.

Tighten the slip clutch with a torque wrench to spec.

That will take care of the slipping.

Run the pto at the proper speed for your tractor

Go s l o w - 1st gear lo.

I had my garden plot 150' x 75' plowed by my neighbor with a Moldboard Plow. It completely turns the soil over then you can till it.

My neighbor is a farmer. He's got every attachment cept a tiller.

His moldboard plow cut thru hard pan and flipped it like hot knife thru budder. Took him about 15 minutes to do 4 rows. Maybe not even.

So maybe a neighbor can help its that time of year a lot of farmers are plowing over corn from last year with manure getting ready for planting in a few weeks round these parts.

Make hay when the sun shines.... never know when its going to rain for a week. One thing I learned was dont put off for tomorrow what we need to do today.

Same goes with tilling. Mud is pretty tough on a tiller and the tractor.

 

[Kellermeister]

I don’t depend on a rotary tiller to break the ground after 3 years. I use a moldboard plow then a disc. Then when it isn’t too wet or dry, I drag the tiller over it both ways. All of this could take a couple of months Depending on the weather.
PS. I hate slip clutches. I prefer to replace cheap shear bolts and nuts rather than an expensive hard to find clutch. I’ve rigged a replacement for just about every slip clutch that I’ve burned out in the last 10 years.

 

[Surshot]

If a neighbor has a heavy cutter head disk (scalloped blades), it should cut that soil to where your tiller will move it OK. My old heavy, House 18” blade disks will cut my hard road bed clay with 2-3” roots in it.

 

[Gil A]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 morer acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank yor

Several things to do or check. As mentioned tension of slip clutch may be adjusting. Here are other things to check or do.
1- since field over grown and had to mow may have more trash on surface than tiller can handle, thus need as one mentioned using a bottom plow to turn it under or use a disk harrow, which will cut trash and help in turning it under.
2- Tillers do a lot of work but works best on hard or trashy surface if travel slow. My first use of a tiller was behind a John Deere 70 HP tractor. Friend's tiller on loan and told me it was rated for a 45HP tractor and to travel slow. But since my tractor was 70 HP thought could use 2nd gear. Bad idea.... it bounced and barely broke the surface. Shifted down to 1st (low gear) and it did an excellent job in renovation an old pasture that had no tillage in about 20 years.
Good luck, Gil

 

[sallyb]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

I have same kind of land red clay river bottom, I found that harrow disc then Toto till, and if you have access to water , water first. The land is like a brick without watering first. It would be very time consuming to use Tito tiller.

 

[Tony H]

Not familiar with The River. Looked it up on line and at a casual glance, the gearbox looks way tiny. Maybe it can't handle your ground. My Kubota neighbors tiller literally has what looks like a solid rear axle mounted on top of tines. Big gears in that differential casing. That unit, has chewed up virgin soil that was weeds, clay and shale in two sweeps. I was way impressed.

 

[OzarkChris]

I have either extremely hard clay soil (when dry) or a mucky mess clay soil (when moist to wet). Although I could "probably" just use the Tiller, I find it much easier on the equipment if I either use the subsoiler to break it up or a moldboard turn it over before tilling. We've tried several different way to make the soil better (1. Tons of sand, 2. Yd3s & Yd3s of chicken litter, 3. Bales & bales of wheat straw), but none of this seems to help long term - typically whatever goes in the soil (to amend it) doesn't stick around in the soil for more than the first planting. We do winter beans, squash, potatoes etc and the soil (which is great according to county ag) is hard as cement.

If your soil is like mine, you might think about looking around for a used mold board or subsoiler (should work on a 48hp, the one I use for our garden is only 55hp and it pulls a 2 plow like it isn't even there). Make sure you do some research if you get a plow, it really needs to be set up for "your" tractor before you use it the first time - many people on YouTube that have videos on how to setup a plow.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

I have either extremely hard clay soil (when dry) or a mucky mess clay soil (when moist to wet). Although I could "probably" just use the Tiller, I find it much easier on the equipment if I either use the subsoiler to break it up or a moldboard turn it over before tilling. We've tried several different way to make the soil better (1. Tons of sand, 2. Yd3s & Yd3s of chicken litter, 3. Bales & bales of wheat straw), but none of this seems to help long term - typically whatever goes in the soil (to amend it) doesn't stick around in the soil for more than the first planting. We do winter beans, squash, potatoes etc and the soil (which is great according to county ag) is hard as cement.

If your soil is like mine, you might think about looking around for a used mold board or subsoiler (should work on a 48hp, the one I use for our garden is only 55hp and it pulls a 2 plow like it isn't even there). Make sure you do some research if you get a plow, it really needs to be set up for "your" tractor before you use it the first time - many people on YouTube that have videos on how to setup a plow.

I have the same soil type. It’s either peanut butter or peanut brittle, and it dries out really fast. I tilled sphagnum peat moss into the garden and it has helped a lot. I broke it deep with a plow then tilled the peat moss in. A lot of it. It made a huge difference. Because my soil is acidic and so is the peat moss, I also added a healthy dose of ag lime. I also put red clover on it in the fall and then till it under in spring.

 

[jefjulia]

Depends on the soil type and moisture level. It is easier on the tiller and a deeper cut is obtained if the ground is ripped, plowed or disced first. Also short or dead vegetation is better than live. But, rototillers can work in virgin soil under the right conditions and right soil type. As for me, I rip before rototilling and get a much deeper job: ripped deep and fine layer on top. Just rototilling alone still leaves a lot of the root underground ready to come back up.

 

[gckshea]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

Your slip clutch might well be adjusted too light. A 6 foot tiller in clay/loam, without a bunch of rocks, ought to be going to town and 48hp wouldn't even sniffle. Try tightening the six or eight nuts on the clutch spring plate a quarter turn at a time evenly all around. You'll get to the point when it will till, but will still be loose enough to slip for an obstruction.

 

[flagpond01]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

You should plow first then it's a breeze.

 

[Bearsixty7]

Just so everyone see's it, OP responded and made changes that helped, Post 38.

Hey all - i wanted to thank everyone for very useful info. I was able to make the following adjustments, and now the dirt is damn near like potting soil. Much happier now. Still slips on occasion, but much better than before.

1. adjusted the slip clutch 1/4 turn, tested, and repeat. Ended doing that about 4 times.
2. raised up the depth from 2 to 1 - so now the most shallow the tines can go (on a scale of 1 to 4)
3. double-checked my leveling of the implement 3pt hitch. I noticed the right side was slightly higher than left, so adjusted it down.
4. I have a large pile of composted leaves from last Fall I dumped a few buckets into the soil as well. Worked up real nice with the clay loam soil.

When I bring my tractor in for it's first 50 hours service (at 25 hours now), I'll have the mechanic look at that slip clutch to ensure the disk aren't burned out completely from my initial use of tiller (and yes there was smoke). thank you

 

[DK35vince]

If the ground needs plowed and disced before using a tiller, why bother with a tiller at at all.

 

[Fielding]

I have the same tiller also known as chinese yct-066, Its all right enough.

But in new areas I always go for an explore with the subsoiler in two directions first, finds all the big rocks!

 

[Rightsaidfred]

-Plow it first

-Then till it (with the clutch adjusted properly) if you dont have a set of discs.

Only time ive used my 7ft tiller instead of disc's is when I was re claiming a field over run by swamp grass. Even after plowing the discs just didnt make any impact on it. for "normal" fields, I plow then disc...no till. There is something to be said for minimum tillage, I no expert but its what Im reading.

Also....I have similar soil here, there is no way I'd attempt to till my fields that have not been worked in a while without plowing them first. Too hard on the tiller and the progress is too slow.

Id also say to be cognizant of the moisture content of the clay based soils once it is plowed, too wet and that tiller will clog up pretty quick and you'll make little progress. I have these issues in my food plots I plant for the deer as well.