digging a ditch

[gwdixon]

The best tool for the job, with your tractor is a plow. Just keep plowing back and forth and once you get it close then use the box blade. A plow is cheep, and will do 2 jobs. Break up the soil and move it out to the side all at the same time.

Please provide a Craigslist entry for a cheap plow. Those babies are expensive.

The tractor owned by the OP will not run a plow very effectively. A single bottom 12" MIGHT work but getting it down to 12" deep would be very doubtful.

 

[deerseeker001]

i used a 2 bottom plow and then a back blade turned out decent.

 

[CliffordK]

Please provide a Craigslist entry for a cheap plow. Those babies are expensive.

Everything is relative to your definition of cheap.

Just a brief look locally at Craigslist.
THREE-POINT PLOW
IH Plow

here is a little tiny Cat 0 plow.
Garden Tractor Plow 3pt

Here is a small V Plow... it would do a pretty good job at making small trenches, but one would still have to break up the ridge.
DIRT BUSTER PLOW

Single bottom plow. Would need a bit of work on the hitch. Missing the coulter.
Vintage Farm Equipment Yard Art

Anyway, there are options without spending an arm and a leg.

 

[Ken45101]

If I ever do get a grader blade, I hope to get one with built in tilt, so that I can adjust it to more like a 45 degree angle, versus the relatively shallow angle that my three-point gives.

Although many of us think of operating like that, I think you will find that experienced operators get the most done by taking little slices at a time. Even a bulldozer doesn't tilt the blade 45 degrees.

 

[Gem99ultra]

With enough tenacity - anything CAN be done I have cut shallow ditches with box blades as well as rear scrape blades. IMHO, the scrape blade makes the best smooth flowing banks. The idea of keeping the ditch shallow with smooth low banks is a good idea. I've done the same thing to allow me to drive over them in my pickup.

I recently bought a 6-way tilting scrape blade from Everything Attachments, and it sure makes life easier than doing a similar task with my box blade. Another thought is to run a subsoiler from the low spots to where you want the runoff. That'd be much safer for the horses, but unless you bury some sort of permanent drain hose in there, it will have to be done occasionally.

There's my 2 cents; keep the change

 

[Ed of all trades]

Cheep is relative, you can buy a rear blade that will scrape along the top of the ground or work with a box blade for a couple of weeks, or buy or rent a backhoe, or .... A small plow will break up the soil and move it in the right direction, out of the sides of the ditch, If you plow long enough it will mostly do the job including getting down to 12", just not in one pass. I suppose G W would think a pick and shovel would be more in the cheep line but they would get mighty expensive in time and sweat. I have done ditches with a double 16" plow that was 18" deep and built a road across a hill side and it worked well. Just came back with a rear blade and smoothed it out. I don't know of another tool that will do as well for the money with what he has.

 

[gwdixon]

Cheep is relative, you can buy a rear blade that will scrape along the top of the ground or work with a box blade for a couple of weeks, or buy or rent a backhoe, or .... A small plow will break up the soil and move it in the right direction, out of the sides of the ditch, If you plow long enough it will mostly do the job including getting down to 12", just not in one pass. I suppose G W would think a pick and shovel would be more in the cheep line but they would get mighty expensive in time and sweat. I have done ditches with a double 16" plow that was 18" deep and built a road across a hill side and it worked well. Just came back with a rear blade and smoothed it out. I don't know of another tool that will do as well for the money with what he has.

I'm sure you are correct about the plow working for ditching since you have more experience than I have in the area.

I was trying to work within the parameters of what the OP already owns.

Possibly he could buy a plow, use it, and resell it. It doesn't appear that he has any other use for a plow.

 

[CliffordK]

Other than ditch irrigation, I suppose that once the ditches are established, then all is necessary is to maintain the ditches which is much easier to do, and can often be done with a shovel.

Unless, of course, one chooses to plow or till the field, in which case the ditches may need to be reestablished.

The ditching equipment may still come in handy to clean the ditches periodically.

BTW, it is often easier to visualize where to put ditches when there is actually standing water in the field (although, of course, harder on equipment).

 

[schmism]

I think everyone is greatly over estimating the capability of that little yanmar. 2wd tractor that weighs 2000lbs and has about a 18hp drawbar pull.

IMHO with that tractor, 4' box blade is max. a single bottom plow is all that it will pull. a light duty 5' rear blade will be to light for the ditching required.

Ive cut a few drainage ditches with a potato plow, cuts deep and a few passes are usually enough.

 

[Missouri Pioneer]

Many years ago with my first tractor, a 2 WD Kubota B7200, I found a rear blade to be wholly ineffective in moving packed dirt (or more than 3" of snow, for that matter).