2 wheel or 4 wheel?

[jcraftenworth]

I know you weren't addressing me, but I just wanted to say that while I was searching craigslist I found a couple of old Gravely's with dual rotary plows. These are the originals, with no safety features - they spin the blades out in the open and god help anyone who gets in the way! But if cash is tight, you can get a good machine for no more than $1000.

Well I can't see them being that dangerous because the plow is what 5 or 6 feet in front of the operator, with the machine in the middle there's not way to trip and fall into it. I've watched a lot of youtube vids of those gravely plows, they work great...I'll keep an eye on the craigslist ads. The main drawback is equipment creep...you can wake up and find 3, 4, maybe 20! or more different pieces of engine run equipment in your shed, they all gotta be maintained and winterized. My dream is a 4 wheel tractor with pto, and a 2 wheel tractor with pto, and implements for each. Like right now I was wanting a wood chipper to mulch my raspberries and asparagus, and it would actually be cheaper to buy a reasonably capable used machine on craigslist vs buying a pto implement, it would probably work great for my immediate uses and save 1000 bucks, but they're all in one units with their own engine! I don't want a fleet of machines, it's super tempting though, gotta fight it! I've got a small engine driven snowblower and I've got it listed on craigslist right now, because with the acquisition of my bcs machine I'd rather have a snowblower implement (the bcs snowblowers actually outperform most of the single use machines by a lot). The main problem with bcs and grillo stuff is finding used implements to save cash, most of the time, if we want it we gotta buy new!

CADplans, I wouldn't be using the rotary plow in my planting beds, it's actually just in the walkways to periodically throw soil up on the planting beds to maintain their raised height. Other than that, I'd use it for breaking new ground or maybe laying pipe or underground cables (probably not too common a task for me, YMMV).

Arrow, this is the place I found the Rinaldi for 3 point tractors: Tractor Tools Direct | TX35 Mini Power Harrow by R2 Rinaldi

They have it in 48" and 60" wide too. It's exactly the same machine as for bcs and grillo, just 3 point. In fact the 35" version is narrower than the largest one sold for 2 wheel tractors which is 36" wide. You can also pick up a quality gear driven 48" rototiller for a lot less than a harrow: King Kutter 48 In. Gear-Driven XB Tiller - Mills Fleet Farm agrisupply.com has italian made 3 poitn tillers in smaller widths than 48" if you want, I believe they have a 36" and a 32" wide 3 point tiller.


As long as you don't overtill I don't see the soil being greatly imperiled by a rototiller, and even if you want to use it over the same ground many times a season for taking out weeds or planting succession crops, just set it to a shallow depth to kill surface weeds and avoid disrupting the earthworms and soil microbes that are further down in the soil. No reason to till deeper than your seed planting depth, if you're transplating you don't need to till deep either because you can just dig a hole in each planting spot with a hand trowel, or poke a hole using a hand dibber like for garlic cloves and onion sets. I just hooked up my 30" wide grillo tiller on my bcs today and it did a fantastic job cleaning up and prepping a bed for next year, it was totally effortless!

Congrats on the yanmar, I think those may be the best bargain in "modern era" compact tractors, the diesels made in the past 30 years or so are better designed and start better in the cold, and I think the yanmars are kubota quality at a cheaper price. If I ever put a diesel on my BCS I'm gonna try to acquire a yanmar diesel engine for it, they sound smoother and I may be off but I feel more confidence in yanmar than those jackhammer loud lombardini diesel engines lol

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Alright, I am now the proud owner of a Yanmar YM2500! Right up until I called the guy to say I'd take it, I was still analyzing craigslist BCS's vs. this tractor. If there's anyone in my area who has a 2 wheeler, I'd totally be up for doing a contest to compare one acre of Yanmar vs. one acre of BCS. I suspect the two wheelers will still give a finer seedbed (since I'll just be using a disc and chain harrow, until thousands of dollars rain from the sky so I can afford a Rinaldi), but since I'll be transplanting most things, I don't think that will be too much of a problem for me.

Glad you pulled the trigger. Two wheel tractors have their place but based using the 30" bush hog on the front of our 17 HP DR brush mower it is more than a work out to use in my case. It will clear property lines were I would not try to put a regular tractor.

 

[farmerboybill]

Jcraftenworth,

I haven't mounted my moldboard plow in years. I use the rotary plow every spring. As far as whether or not to get the double, it depends on what you want to do. Since your ground is flat, that eliminates one argument for getting it. You can take the single plow to the center pass of your garden and go back in forth, working out to the end pass, and leave two dead furrows when you're done. The next year, go the opposite direction starting from the outside and working in, to have a double dead furrow in the middle. With a double, you work from one side to the other and always only have one dead furrow. If you're making raised beds, it doesn't matter which one you buy because you'll use the plow to make what are essentially multiple fields with double dead furrows between them.

Arrows,

Congrats on the purchase, and I hope it works out for you. You can buy small 3 point power harrows if the budget allows. New ones that can be bought in the US include Maschio (I have a 13 foot model) and Kuhn. Just looked up a 50" Maschio, rated for 16-50hp - about $5400. You can also buy a Lely Roterra used if you can find one small enough. I bought a 12foot Lely at a consignment sale last winter for $500. You can't run one that size, but they did make them much smaller. I think you'll like a power harrow on a ride-on tractor much better than one on a walk-behind.

 

[arrows]

Well I can't see them being that dangerous because the plow is what 5 or 6 feet in front of the operator, with the machine in the middle there's not way to trip and fall into it. I've watched a lot of youtube vids of those gravely plows, they work great...I'll keep an eye on the craigslist ads. The main drawback is equipment creep...you can wake up and find 3, 4, maybe 20! or more different pieces of engine run equipment in your shed, they all gotta be maintained and winterized. My dream is a 4 wheel tractor with pto, and a 2 wheel tractor with pto, and implements for each. Like right now I was wanting a wood chipper to mulch my raspberries and asparagus, and it would actually be cheaper to buy a reasonably capable used machine on craigslist vs buying a pto implement, it would probably work great for my immediate uses and save 1000 bucks, but they're all in one units with their own engine! I don't want a fleet of machines, it's super tempting though, gotta fight it! I've got a small engine driven snowblower and I've got it listed on craigslist right now, because with the acquisition of my bcs machine I'd rather have a snowblower implement (the bcs snowblowers actually outperform most of the single use machines by a lot). The main problem with bcs and grillo stuff is finding used implements to save cash, most of the time, if we want it we gotta buy new!

CADplans, I wouldn't be using the rotary plow in my planting beds, it's actually just in the walkways to periodically throw soil up on the planting beds to maintain their raised height. Other than that, I'd use it for breaking new ground or maybe laying pipe or underground cables (probably not too common a task for me, YMMV).

Arrow, this is the place I found the Rinaldi for 3 point tractors: Tractor Tools Direct | TX35 Mini Power Harrow by R2 Rinaldi

They have it in 48" and 60" wide too. It's exactly the same machine as for bcs and grillo, just 3 point. In fact the 35" version is narrower than the largest one sold for 2 wheel tractors which is 36" wide. You can also pick up a quality gear driven 48" rototiller for a lot less than a harrow: King Kutter 48 In. Gear-Driven XB Tiller - Mills Fleet Farm agrisupply.com has italian made 3 poitn tillers in smaller widths than 48" if you want, I believe they have a 36" and a 32" wide 3 point tiller.


As long as you don't overtill I don't see the soil being greatly imperiled by a rototiller, and even if you want to use it over the same ground many times a season for taking out weeds or planting succession crops, just set it to a shallow depth to kill surface weeds and avoid disrupting the earthworms and soil microbes that are further down in the soil. No reason to till deeper than your seed planting depth, if you're transplating you don't need to till deep either because you can just dig a hole in each planting spot with a hand trowel, or poke a hole using a hand dibber like for garlic cloves and onion sets. I just hooked up my 30" wide grillo tiller on my bcs today and it did a fantastic job cleaning up and prepping a bed for next year, it was totally effortless!

Congrats on the yanmar, I think those may be the best bargain in "modern era" compact tractors, the diesels made in the past 30 years or so are better designed and start better in the cold, and I think the yanmars are kubota quality at a cheaper price. If I ever put a diesel on my BCS I'm gonna try to acquire a yanmar diesel engine for it, they sound smoother and I may be off but I feel more confidence in yanmar than those jackhammer loud lombardini diesel engines lol

Will respond more later, but if you're looking for an upgrade plus a chipper, check this out: BCS 1 hp diesel Tiller

 

[jcraftenworth]

Will respond more later, but if you're looking for an upgrade plus a chipper, check this out: BCS 1 hp diesel Tiller

Super sweet deal! And if that 10hp diesel designation is accurate, you know what that means? Yanmar diesel BCS! My favorite! Of course I already blew my load on my used bcs 737 and a bcs/mainline 20" and 30" grillo rototiller (and joel tells me the grillo tiller is a better tiller than the BCS!). However your post has made me realize something. Used BCS accessories are actually out there, they simply come packaged with a used BCS machine in most cases. So if you want to buy used bcs implements, you have to have a fair amount more than the implement in question to invest, buy the package deal, keep what you want and then resell the rest, and the ultimate result will be buying BCS implements at a used price. I think used BCS stuff actually sells pretty well if sold at a discount (yahoos around here ask for virtually the same price as new and their ads last on craigslist for months on end), but still no guarantees how long that extra money in the unwanted equipment will be tied up. But considering the rarity of used BCS implements I think it's probably the only way to go!

Jcraftenworth,

I haven't mounted my moldboard plow in years. I use the rotary plow every spring. As far as whether or not to get the double, it depends on what you want to do. Since your ground is flat, that eliminates one argument for getting it. You can take the single plow to the center pass of your garden and go back in forth, working out to the end pass, and leave two dead furrows when you're done. The next year, go the opposite direction starting from the outside and working in, to have a double dead furrow in the middle. With a double, you work from one side to the other and always only have one dead furrow. If you're making raised beds, it doesn't matter which one you buy because you'll use the plow to make what are essentially multiple fields with double dead furrows between them.

Cool info Bill. The only wrinkle is that for my small patches of corn, wheat and potatoes, as well as melons and squash, I don't use the raised beds, I just use normal ground level soil. I think row crop spacing for potatoes is superior to 30" raised beds with 18" walkways on either side because it's too crowded to try and squeeze in two rows in 30" mainly because they're too close to the edge that tends to erode, exposing the taters and turning them green, and also to harvest the taters I gotta bust up the rows anyway with a digging fork or a middle buster type tool, so it's kinda a wasted effort. Squash and melons just take up too much space so I don't squander my raised beds on those either. And the corn and wheat is probably more land than I have in raised bed veggie rows. Also, next season I plan to plow up about an acre to seed in alfalfa, the plan is to mow the alfalfa with a bagging mower and then spread that on my intensively farmed garden as a green manure. Since I inherited a 30" combo mower with my BCS, I may try to do some cover crops in my raised beds next fall as well, mow em down and till em in. Next year will be my 2nd year growing in some plots and my 3rd year growing in others so it's time I learned how to replenish the soil, and I don't think I want to get into livestock myself. I don't trust local sources of manure either because I figure the stuff is loaded with antibiotics and growth hormones, something I'd rather not have in my soil.

 

[farmerboybill]

That is a Lombardini diesel on that machine. Why do you think the Yanmar is better than the Lom? My understanding is it's a fair bit heavier than the Lombardini, which make it more difficult to balance attachments. You should take a trip down here to run my Lombardini diesel powered 850.

ADDED - I just looked up how far it is from Hawley to Lancaster, only 7.5 hours!

 

[jcraftenworth]

That is a Lombardini diesel on that machine. Why do you think the Yanmar is better than the Lom? My understanding is it's a fair bit heavier than the Lombardini, which make it more difficult to balance attachments. You should take a trip down here to run my Lombardini diesel powered 850.

ADDED - I just looked up how far it is from Hawley to Lancaster, only 7.5 hours!

No offense to the Lombardini owners. I'm not a grease monkey, I base it entirely on how the engines sounded in youtube videos! But I saw that joel is clearing out a 10hp yanmar 853 new old stock, and the current Lombardini is an 11hp so I was thinking the 10hp meant older Yanmar powered 853. I might have to make the trip if I can figure out how to swindle you out of your potato digger and rotary plow My brother just bought a house near Madison, WI within the last year, haven't seen it yet! I have this monster Frazer all gear drive, 2 stroke, 2 wheel tractor, it has some really interesting spring tines. It's heavier duty than even the BCS! I bought it before I found the deal in the Twin Cities for the BCS 737, I have a nice honda 18" tiller that I'm gonna keep as backup to the BCS because it's narrow enough to use in my walkways and on the raised beds (frazer cannot, tiller tines are 26" and the housing is easily 30"). BCS also has differential and steering brakes, and easier to change implements with the pto system. My brother was complaining about his TSC Huskee 5HP reverse tine belt drive so I might be unloading this Frazer on him. Here's a vid of a frazer in action:

 

[farmerboybill]

I actually can't sell my rotary plow. It's geared higher than the average rotary plow, and Joel told me I shouldn't sell it because most machines won't run it. I have the KD440 (which is NLA) on my 850, and he claims anything smaller will not run it. I can sell you a new root digger... I was just using mine last week to dig the first row of potatoes. Got about 100 lbs out of 90 feet of row. Two to go if the ground gets fit again.

 

[CADplans]

I might be unloading this Frazer on him. Here's a vid of a frazer in action:

I had one of those around 1985.
I gifted it to a rich guy that owned a antique tractor museum,,,
He did not have one,, and had been looking for one for a long time.

The gift paid off big time over the years,, he felt like he could never repay the gift,,,
I had $ZERO in the tiller, so, my gift to him paid off big time!! :thumbsup:

I may have to visit the museum and see if he still has it, I haven't been there in 5 years,,,

 

[jcraftenworth]

I actually can't sell my rotary plow. It's geared higher than the average rotary plow, and Joel told me I shouldn't sell it because most machines won't run it. I have the KD440 (which is NLA) on my 850, and he claims anything smaller will not run it. I can sell you a new root digger... I was just using mine last week to dig the first row of potatoes. Got about 100 lbs out of 90 feet of row. Two to go if the ground gets fit again.

Just how high is it geared? I just discovered the bcs pressure washer and wallenstein wood splitter use a pto rpm increasing device. "Technically, the Power Cradle is a mini-transmission attached to the BCS tractor's power take-off (PTO) shaft that increases the maximum speed of the PTO from 990 to 3600 revolutions per minute (RPM). It's required to operate both the Log Splitter and Pressure Washer attachments." But I guess I gotta be careful with my spline type pto cuz as you guys said in an earlier thread, they are more delicate than the current BCS pto.