Disc harrow to Buy?

[livefree]

I need to get a 6' disc harrow, I think, to disk up some filed which have been regraded and dozed prior to reseeding, and to do food plots for wildlife at theforest edge. I may also use to reseed or renovate my 10 acres of hay from time
totime over the years. Right now there a a few acres on the hillside to reclaim from the weeds which I bulldozed last year. I Want to keep the cutting width to about the same as my 6800 for manueverability in or near the woods

I checked out the dealers and they all have Uniteds and JBars for $700-$900 with 20'' blades in general, and they weigh around 600-700lbs.

I see that Monroe Tuf-Line has been heartily recommended here. They weigh 1000 lbs, use 22" blades at 9", and even have a fold over frame to permit heavy mounding if desire, or so they say.

The issue is simple. They cost $1600. While it strikes me that the extra weight is a good thing, I have no experience to help me judge whether the extra money is well spent, or if these lighter Uniteds do the trick. All the local farmers use much wider disks around here.

I am a part time farmer only, with no row crops, just hay and a love of wildlife Maybe I will have an orchard someday.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I use my disc harrow for a lot of the same reasons you state. By all means you need the versatility of the fold over version. The big reason is if the ground cover is heavy you can fold over the rear section and pu extra weight on fewer discs and do a much better job of cutting the ground. I used mine for that yesterday. After the initial cutting is done you fold the rear section back down and straighten the angle of the gangs some and smooth out the somewhat ridged surface.
Good luck
Greg H

 

[livefree]

Het Greg H, how hard, BTW, is it to fold the frame over? On a harrow which weighs 1000 lbs, it would seem to be a bit difficult.

Chris

 

[W5FL]

Chris,

You might want to consider a different approach. A Disc harrow needs weight and soft ground and significant power to pull it if it is really turning deep.

A tiller will do the job of a disk followed by hours of leveling after you get through all in one pass and do a 10X better job. The only drawback is the tiller is not real cheap and it is slow, but the job it does is beyond reproach. After tilling you are ready to plant hay, coastal or any other crop and the ground will be SMOOTH enough to mow later on. You really can reclaim the land from the weeds.

My dad used a disc until he got tired of getting bounced all over the place after planting and finally gave up and bought a 6 ft Long tiller last year. I have a disc that sets most of the time because the tiller does everything much better.

 

[roysallis]

I agree with WEN. When I can afford it I am going to get a tiller and probably get rid of my disk.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Levefree, It is not too difficult to fold over the rear section. You just have to be inventive. It can do great work with a little experience on your part. You better be careful on the tiller issue. It can be a great device but not if you are blessed with rocks and roots as my place is. Tillers are expensive to fix and sooo slow to run. Just my 2 cents
Greg H

 

[W5FL]

I drop the 8 scarfiers on a 76 inch 1000# boxblade and run over the area with that first. It is a much cheaper rock puller than the tiller and I guess it would get roots if I had any trees.

A good tiller should have a decent service life. Mine takes a beating because I have so many rocks and they have a way of multiplying and making more big rocks. While tilling at 1 mph may be slow, there is no other way that leaves as good of a seed bed in less time and leaves the area level and clod free and ready to plant.

 

[gordon]

If the ground was pretty rock free how fast do you think that a tiller could be run and still do a good job? I know that alot of things come into play--hardness of dirt etc.

I don't own a tiller and have never used a large tiller before. Thanks for any input.
Gordon

 

[Bird]

Gordon, the hardness of the ground really is a factor in how fast you can go, but I think about 1 mph is about right. My tiller is one of my most used implements and it's really taken a beating for over 5 years now and so far no repairs or parts replacements except that I did open the gear case on the end once (need to do that again), cleaned it and repacked it with grease and used a new gasket when I put the cover back on. I've used it to start garden spots on ground so hard that it bounced up and down, I've hit small stumps and roots, and I even discovered an old brick patio once that was about an inch under ground and tilled up several bricks. In fact, I'm just amazed that I haven't broken a tine or shear pin yet. For ground that you intend to plant in, I don't know of anything else that will do as good a job. I've also used it just to loosen up dirt, break up clods, etc. so I could then use the front end loader to move the dirt, spread it, etc.

Bird

 

[CraigM]

Livefree: the guys are right, a tiller is going to give you the most even surface, but they are expensive also. The farmer that cleared the weeds and planted hay on our place used a heavy disc to break the weed sod. The Monroe disc sounds heavy enough when folded up to do this job. From what I have seen of the Monroe, it looks farm duty. If you can afford it, you would probably not regret it. The disc is a tool and you should Never buy a cheap tool as you will always regret it later.
Another solution to your problem may be to find an old plow and disc. In my area, plows are about $100/bottom and discs go for $300 and up for 3-point mounted ones, less for drag types. There are lots of them around. If you have stumps and roots, you may need to get a plow with the trip feature so it can jump over them without breaking something. My B2150 will pull a 2 bottom, 14 inch plow with some concessions to only having turf tires, and a 20 blade disc with no problem. My disc is an old JD model KBA, drag type, about 6.5 feet wide. It is simmilar in weight to the lighter ones you have been looking at. It will not break sod, but does a nice job of smoothing and leveling. Drag a piece of chain link fence behind it on the last pass and the result is pretty impressive. Look up my past post on plowing with turf tires in the Kubota owning discussion if this applies to you.

Craig
Hershey PA

 

[W5FL]

gordon,

I always just set at PTO speed in first gear which is about 1.4 mph and go all day like that with the tiller. Probably takes 2 hours per acre, but does an absolutely beautiful job. If you let it rain on the tilled ground and then do it again, you have a seed bed with good deep moisture and it will grow anything.

Disks and plows do a really poor job in comparison, although they are faster. The clods and roughness of the ground causes problems for several years and the plow is no faster than the tiller. The disc usually has to be a really heavy one to break hard land and still leaves clods. Nope, a tiller is a really wonderful invention. I just smile and think with hand tools the months of hard work that I am able to do every day with the tiller! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Great for gardens, flower gardens, shrubs and other landscaping and with a little pre-emergence you can have a weed free orchard that will hold a lot of moisture.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Wen, when was the last time you used your tiller on a 10 acre hay field. You are not old enough to have finished. While the tiller may do good looking work , on the farm such perfection isnt needed. For starters if the field isnt really flat erosion can start from the super fine soil and second the super fine soil now has no tilth and if you get several hard rains the soil compacts to a concrete consistency and least the clay soils here in N. Ga. do.
The type work done on the farm and done for our homes often require different results and if you arent experienced in those areas one doesnt realize the difference. Dont get defensive Wen this isnt an attack just my 2 cents. A disk harrow , the proper one , used with sufficient soil moisture will certainly do the job for a hay field. How many real farmers use a tiller. None that I am aware of. Large jobs just take too long.
Greg H

 

[W5FL]

Well, my dad probably qualifies as a farmer/rancher. He farms 150 acres and after going from horse drawn teams to a tractor, he too felt that a disc was the way to go. After many years of putting in his hay fields with the disk and the resulting mess that it made, he finally got a 6 ft tiller and puts it in every year with that. Yes, it takes about 2 hours an acre, but the field remains level and smooth enough to drive across at 4 or 5 miles an hour without bouncing you off of the tractor. You only have to do it once a year. His coastal fields are nice enough for a lawn when they are cut.

Maybe at 85 years old, he likes to ride his tractor more hours than you do. The doctor told him that he was not to work more than 8 hours per day. He complies with that by working in the mornings until lunch, and coming back in at 8 at night. I thought that was at least 12 hours, but he told me that was 8. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[W5FL]

p.s. yes, I did my 10 acre coastal field with a tiller. If the guy had used his big disk on it, I would still have a mess. It took 2 days to do it the first time and 2 days after a rain to do it the second time. As a result, it held moisture well enough to get the crop started under drought conditions. I guess even my grandson is over 4 days old. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

What is the price range for tillers? I've got a L-3710 and some rough ground (sandy loam) that needs leveling for pasture/horses. I've got the time to till - now to find out if I've got the money?

Also any suggestions on brands of tillers will be gratefully accepted.

Bob C.

 

[Bird]

Tillers probably start at $1100 to $1200 and go up from there. 5 years ago, my 40" Bush Hog tiller cost me $1,300. And like Greg said, I don't think many of the "big" farmers use a tiller in the field; too exensive and takes too much time so the disks are very popular. However, if they have the time and money, they use a tiller and do a better job. I know one fellow in this area who supposedly paid $5,500 for his tiller last year, primarily to use on a hay field (and yep, he has lots of money and a big new tractor, too).

Bird

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Can most PTO-powered tillers be used to till in long established sod (e.g., quack grass)? Does one need a special heavy duty model for this?

 

[Bird]

OK omg, I'll bite. I have no idea what "quack grass" is; never heard of it./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif But a great deal of my tilling has been in long established bermuda and other grasses. The moisture content and texture of the soil is more important than anything else in determining how deep I go, how smooth the result, and how many passes I need to make to get it like I want it. In dry conditions, grass is usually not a concern, but if the grass is green, and especially if it's tall, I sometimes have it get wrapped around the shaft and tines. It doesn't seem to bother the tractor or tiller, but sometimes I stop and clean off the grass and roots so the tiller will do a better job of pulverizing the soil the way I want.

Bird

 

[livefree]

Well I originally posted this question, & I must admit I have just gotten more and more confused.

Believe me I would much rather, other things being equal, buy a tiller, as it seems there are some nice ones 6' wide at a reasonably good price. Even the farmers, when they say they prefer a disc harrow, are rreally talking about the pull type, not the three point hitch type. The market for a 6' high end disk harrow is zero here, and if i do buy one everyone tells me that I have to find or make a harrow to bust up the clods.

But I am just concerned with rocks and roots. This is Middle Tennesse, and i will be rejuvenating a hillside after bulldozing it. I walk around & I can see the 6-9" long rocks everywhere jst at the surface. What will this do to my tiller?

Do I need to get a filed cultivator to pull stuff out? The locals say forget about a subsoiler.

Man I had no idea that I would need three inplements to put in some grass and food plots for birds. Them be pretty expensive quail!

Thanks for all the help, but i am sure lost here, and running out of time for this year.

Chris

 

[Anonymous Poster]

livefree, I use my disc for quail food plots in rough ground. believe me a tiller will be destroyed by those large rock after a few trips. Most of us tractor nuts lose site of practicality and buy many toys and expect perfection. What you and I seem to need requires the soil be plowed but not necesarily like a yard. The rocks you mention will have to be manually removed. A field cultivator is not designed for rough ground. The older people used what was called a bush and bog harrow. That was a single gang of discs with a lot of weight on it much like the foldover harrows of today. Do what you like but after tearing up a tiller on big rocks and roots you will probably like me go back to old technology and tools and be happy you finally figured it out.
Happy tractoring
Greg H