braking up soil

[ericbx]

Will a box blade brake up soil and level it. I just cleared an area for a new garden and was wondering if the box blade will do the job. I dont have a tiller and would find more uses for a box blade. Thanks for any input /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Been looking at the woods 48" box blade

 

[kubby]

I have a Land Pride 42" box scraper on my BX1500. It is mostly useful for moving dirt and leveling. It has three ripping bars that will certainly break up hard soil, but only if the ground is fairly level. Otherwise they go shallow and deep each time the tractor pitches up or down. And they only do a very coarse job, nothing like a disc or tiller.

I'd suggest looking hard at a tiller. I use a 42" Muratori on 2 acres of orchard and it works like nothing else to pulverize soil into the texture of cake flour. And being able to back into corners, drop the three point, and start tilling is really useful.

-Bill

 

[_RaT_]

A box blade can do a very good job of opening up the soil. The harder the soil, the less rippers you can put down. In order to effectively break the soil up, it takes several passes and one bit of advice, get as heavy of a box blade as the tractor can handle.

 

[HomeBrew2]

I use my box blade rippers all the time to break up soil. Works good. You'll need to experiment with different settings like the toplink length and ripper depth depending on your soil, etc. If you have a lot of hills, try to hog them out individually first. when smoothing, use the 3PH position control or use chains to limit the downward travel of the BB. This will help to keep a constant grading amount. Drive a figure 8 pattern or zig zag to help minimize creating hills and vallies. I like using a tiller too but don't like the powder it creates when there's no moisture in the soil.
Cheers!

 

[RobJ]

Main problem is it may not go deep enough and will leave chunks you can't plant in. Why a disc works better or a tiller. With a disc you can go over the small area as much as you want. A tiller would be cool to have.

 

[ericbx1500]

I got a price for the woods tiller 1800.00 /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gifwhich was the better of the two. This is not in the budget /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I could get a nice walk behind for 600.00 which is in the budget /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif But then I thought that I rather invest that into a box blade which would have more uses around the house. If I buy a walk behind tiller I would use it only twice a year verses a box blade I could use most of the year. Thats why I was wondering if i could get buy using it to loosing up the soil and I could also use it to maintain my 800ft stone driveway /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[RonR]

I have both and often use the BB rippers to loosen up the clay soil making multiple passes about a week apart. This loosens the soil up, allows moisture in, and makes it till so much easier!

If you go with the walk behind, I'd still use the rippers on it first. Will make the tilling so much easier.

ron