Disc harrow advice

[jenkinsph]

Texomahog,
You should really try out this disk before you buy it. Make sure you get the results you need or expect first. I can understand a disk working on the larger tractors but suspect a 16" blade will do very little for you. A 48" tiller with shoes set to run 4" depth would work a lot better and be much easier to transport. Your NH Boomer 20 is a light tractor with comparable hp to my Deere x749 mower so I have a good idea what works for your tractor. I have used a 60" light tiller (Howard HR4) behind my 749 and while it worked I felt it was too much of a strain so after a few small lawns and discontinued its use. A 48" tiller would be a better fit.

I have owned and used small disks with 18" blades and while they will work they are much more of a strain on a tractor to use. These were much older heavier tractors in the 4000 lb 30 ho range, which were better suited to draft loads than your NH B 20. These newer lighter small machines can get more hp to the ground through the pto driveline than through the wheels is my point. If the disk is heavy enough to do some good I think you will have a difficult time pulling it at the proper travel speed.

I do most of my tilling with a Deere 4520 60hp tractor pulling a 673 6' tiller, works pretty good. I could use a disk if properly sized but am reluctant to do so because the disks are more trouble to transport. On this size tractor and up you can use either design and get good results, most farmers will go with a large disk. The difference is most farmers aren't using a 1 ton tractor either.

 

[Chilly807]

I should have mentioned, my disc has 15" pans (old, old , old! ), but it isn't my primary tillage tool either. I break the ground first with a 2 bottom plow. The disc only has to break up the furrows and level the ground for planting. With lower hp, this might be a better way for the op to go. I've never prepped food plots, so I don't know what depth you need.

Sean

 

[jeff9366]

I found a dealer in OKC that could get me a 4.5 Atlas with 16 inch discs for $600. The clevis are low enough to load the rig on my trailer to take to the deer lease. Not a heavy duty rig, but, should stir the soil enough for me to plant grass.

Box frame?

How many 16" discs? 12? 16? 20?

What total weight?

Scalloped discs, I hope.

 

[flusher]

I should have mentioned, my disc has 15" pans (old, old , old! ), but it isn't my primary tillage tool either. I break the ground first with a 2 bottom plow. The disc only has to break up the furrows and level the ground for planting. With lower hp, this might be a better way for the op to go. I've never prepped food plots, so I don't know what depth you need.

Sean

Good idea. When my tractor was a little 2005 Kubota B7510HST (21 hp engine, 17 hp pto) I used a middle buster plow to loosen the soil around my house when I was installing landscaping. Then I rototilled with a 4-ft wide Yanmar RS1200 tiller. This way the strain on the tractor and on the tiller was minimized and the job went quicker.

 

[Texomahog]

Thanks jekinsph...

I actually had a tiller with my old JD 650. I used it for about twenty years. It was perfect for preparing a seed bed. When I first cleared my garden spot with it however, I would travel five yards and have to cut the roots from the tiller. This disc is going to be used solely for making feed plots for wildlife. I will be sowing rye, wheat, oats, clover, etc. It is all "new" ground, so, I assume I would have the same problem with a tiller I had thirty-years ago when I cleared my current garden spot. In addition, I just need to scratch the service to sow the grasses in my feed plots, and, I do not really need to destroy all of the native vegetation that is already there. Our garden has greatly diminished in size and our little 5 horse tiller is all we need for it.

 

[Texomahog]

Box frame?

How many 16" discs? 12? 16? 20?

What total weight?

Scalloped discs, I hope.

It is a rigid frame Jeff. 12 16" discs all scalloped. I believe he said it weighed about 430 lbs. It has greaseable bearings. If I planned to use it to prepare a seed bed, I certainly would have purchased an adjustable box frame and perhaps a five footer. To solely plant grass for feed plots, I am assuming this little disc should work. In addition, it was so reasonably priced.

 

[Chilly807]

Nothing wrong with a fixed angle frame. Although mine is adjustable in theory at least, I doubt I'll ever have much use for that function. I simply set it to the most aggressive position and use it there. I'll attach a couple pictures of mine later today, it's definitely one of a kind.. :laughing: It's what you end up with when someone gives you something for nothing, and you're just too dam* stubborn to bite the bullet and go out and buy the proper tool for the job. My problem was that I have a welder and a pretty good imagination. Plus, anything decent would have cost me almost $2K to buy new, and there's simply nothing used available locally. To prepare a couple of gardens a year, it's hard to justify that kind of money.

Sean

 

[jeff9366]

It is a rigid frame Jeff. 12 16" discs all scalloped. I believe he said it weighed about 430 lbs. It has greaseable bearings. If I planned to use it to prepare a seed bed, I certainly would have purchased an adjustable box frame and perhaps a five footer. To solely plant grass for feed plots, I am assuming this little disc should work. In addition, it was so reasonably priced.

Your new Disc Harrow should be a good match for your tractor. Let us know how it works.

Keep those axle nuts tight!

 

[Chilly807]

If it's any help, this is what I have. There's no rigid frame as far as the disc gangs are concerned, except for the center "spine". Originally it was an articulated two piece drag disc, as shown in the first pic. The second disc simply towed behind the first one. It was an old Massey Harris disc, God only knows what year it was made.



I never used it in that configuration, instead I modified it to be a single row three point disc as shown below. While it worked, it didn't dig very well and took too many passes to prepare a seed-bed, every pass compacting the ground more under the wheels of the tractor. It was adjustable for angle, but was left in the most aggressive position. I added as much weight as the 3-point would lift, but still had mediocre results. The gangs are shown nearly straight in these pictures, it was a pig to adjust unless you had the weight off the ground.



So this spring, I decided to try adding the second row of discs as a last resort before scrapping it and buying a rigid frame model. The chains support the weight of the gangs while being transported, they're slack while it's working. All the cross bracing and hangers seem to keep everything fairly stiff, which was the intent. The weight of the second row keeps the front row digging, much better results. Both gangs are raked at roughly 21 degrees from square and seem to work well there.
Not sure exactly what it weighs, but I made it as short as I possibly could, removed one disc from each gang to get more ground pressure and make it easier to pull. As it is, the Kubota will just lift it and that's about it.



While the soil we have is still a work in progress, the improved disc makes garden prep a lot easier and quicker. I need to add a piece to level out the strip between the gangs, as it still leaves a ridge on every pass.



Sean