discing

[jenkinsph]

Since you have added weight and are getting some results I would adjust for the most set or angle that you can pull about 5 mph and plow away. Disking takes many passes unless you have large heavy duty equipment.

You might want to consider building a 3 pt or drag section harrow using 5/8 sucker rod for the teeth. This is a quick build for a metal worker, I built mine in about 5 or 6 hours.

 

[warhammer]

I have set the disc for max angle. I have gone over about half the areas needed with 4 passes at different angles to each other and it cuts down to about 3 inches or so.
Everything I have read says to disc to about 6 inches deep to allow the roots to develop.
I am thinking more weight. As one of the other posters indicated no angle on the disc wheels would allow it to cut deeper - maybe a couple of passes like that as well.
If I spray the area with Roundup to kill any remaining weeds how soon after can I seed the Bermuda?

Since you have added weight and are getting some results I would adjust for the most set or angle that you can pull about 5 mph and plow away. Disking takes many passes unless you have large heavy duty equipment.

You might want to consider building a 3 pt or drag section harrow using 5/8 sucker rod for the teeth. This is a quick build for a metal worker, I built mine in about 5 or 6 hours.

 

[whistlepig]

I have set the disc for max angle. I have gone over about half the areas needed with 4 passes at different angles to each other and it cuts down to about 3 inches or so.
Everything I have read says to disc to about 6 inches deep to allow the roots to develop.
I am thinking more weight. As one of the other posters indicated no angle on the disc wheels would allow it to cut deeper - maybe a couple of passes like that as well.
If I spray the area with Roundup to kill any remaining weeds how soon after can I seed the Bermuda?

I think you have to wait 7 days after spraying Roundup before planting. A disc won't really do much if it isn't angled. I have an adjustable disc and have played with all the angles. I settled on keeping the setting the angle as steep as possible. What mattered more was the wetness or dryness of the ground and multiple passes. Also on sod making passes 90 degrees from the first passes help. This is discing only. I don't have a plow.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Do not bother straighting out your disc. The cup of your disc is what helps pull the disc into the ground along with the angle that it is set at & the weight of the unit. Your disc blades are very worn, to get the results that you are looking for is probably going to take twice as many passes as it would with new disk blades. Nothing wrong with that, just that it takes longer using a worn set vs a newer set. Put some weight on the front set and go back to work.

 

[Eric_Phillips]

Don't worry about the roundup now. The roundup needs to be incorporated through the leaf of an actively growing plant to kill it. It will not kill the seed you have stirred up.

 

[warhammer]

Went out today and made a couple of passes with a landscape rake. That smoothed things out and broke up the clods pretty well.

Do not bother straighting out your disc. The cup of your disc is what helps pull the disc into the ground along with the angle that it is set at & the weight of the unit. Your disc blades are very worn, to get the results that you are looking for is probably going to take twice as many passes as it would with new disk blades. Nothing wrong with that, just that it takes longer using a worn set vs a newer set. Put some weight on the front set and go back to work.

 

[Bassicfun]

Up in Ohio here with some clay.. but been reading through this thread, do discs work on hills fairly well? I'm thinking of getting a disc harrow, going over this 'dormant' farmland we have (hasn't been farmed in probably 20+ years) and then using the landscape rake to smooth out the clumps/dirt. My issue is that it is filled with ruts and other imperfections that makes mowing all but painful... (~5 acres here)

 

[warhammer]

The acreage I am working on is all sloped and terraced and had not been worked in any way for at least 30-40 years. When I mowed there were many spots where you had to crawl over it or get rattled to death.

I have attached some pics at what I have arrived at as seedbed.

To get to this state I subsoiled with a Fred Cain Subsolier I got from Everything Attachments, Disced several passes in different directions and then Cultipacked in two directions.

I did not get much penetration with the old disc I started with. The Hay King disc I got to replace it only required 2 passes to get 6-7 inches deep. Discing levels things out to a surprising degree. The old cultipacker I bought did a good job of breaking up the clods from the discing and firming the seedbeds up.

If we get some rain that should finish melting the small resulting clods . I am wanting to get the Bermuda seed in the ground but I think the dirt needs to be a bit more broken down to do so.

Up in Ohio here with some clay.. but been reading through this thread, do discs work on hills fairly well? I'm thinking of getting a disc harrow, going over this 'dormant' farmland we have (hasn't been farmed in probably 20+ years) and then using the landscape rake to smooth out the clumps/dirt. My issue is that it is filled with ruts and other imperfections that makes mowing all but painful... (~5 acres here)

 

[peterssj4034]

Basicfun,

I have heavy clay conditions in NE Ohio, as my land was stripped 50+ years ago and not reclaimed to today's standards. When I bought the ground, it was heavily rutted and grown over, and it is sloped, uphill, from the road to the back of the property.

I used a disc on most of the 7 acres, with good results. I had even better results when I bought a single bottom plow, and then disced. I was able to get the plow at auction for $125. Well worth the money.

 

[bindian]

Warhammer,
For quick extra weight you can strap on a 55 gallon drum and fill it with water.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Bassicfun]

Warhammer- Sounds quite similar... very hard to mow without getting severe pains... Thanks for the pictures, still looks pretty flat overall. I have some pretty unique hills in the front and back yard, which we'll keep, though smoothing the transitions would be great.. The pictures are helpful...

peterssj4034- Thanks for the info, I would imagine we have similar soil conditions, I'm in the Mansfield area here. What did you pull the discs and the plow with? holding onto those? or selling the implements. I am hoping to find something compact enough the BX2660 can handle, yet large enough I don't have to spend 2 years on it. I will at least look for a good set of discs, I already have a landscape rake, which I would think would help smooth out the dirt/clumps when all said and done.

I am concerned about doing the work, and not getting it seeded right away, thinking water will erode the dirt and make trenches in it again (that is what happened as the house was being built) Lots of stones, large and small, the rake should help remove those, as long as I can get enough weight on the discs to do some 'digging'... I plan to tackle a couple acres as a time, rather than try to do all 5 at once, as I don't have much free time to play with the land & tractor right now.

 

[jenkinsph]

Warhammer,
Looking at the pics posted on page 3 it appears you are getting it under control. For rough areas I run my landplane/grader over it after tilling to smooth and flatten out the tough spots. I have a lot of areas that are very rough to deal with and this method is working really well for me.

One of the things I need is a good cultipacker to firm everything up, yours looks good.

 

[peterssj4034]

peterssj4034- Thanks for the info, I would imagine we have similar soil conditions, I'm in the Mansfield area here. What did you pull the discs and the plow with? holding onto those? or selling the implements. I am hoping to find something compact enough the BX2660 can handle, yet large enough I don't have to spend 2 years on it. I will at least look for a good set of discs, I already have a landscape rake, which I would think would help smooth out the dirt/clumps when all said and done.

I am concerned about doing the work, and not getting it seeded right away, thinking water will erode the dirt and make trenches in it again (that is what happened as the house was being built) Lots of stones, large and small, the rake should help remove those, as long as I can get enough weight on the discs to do some 'digging'... I plan to tackle a couple acres as a time, rather than try to do all 5 at once, as I don't have much free time to play with the land & tractor right now.

I used a New Holland TZ24DA to pull everything. It's a 24hp Hydro, 4 wheel drive. I initially tried to run the plow thought the clay soil, but the fact that it had not been touched in roughly 50 years, it was pretty compacted and tough for that little tractor to pull the plow through. I used a middlebuster to loosen the soil, and then I had good success with the plow.

Funny you should mention about the implements...I'm actually "upgrading" this week to a New Holland T2320 (should be delivered Friday), which is 45 HP, with an 84" Bush Hog rear finish mower, FEL, etc. I currently have a 60" MMM. Like everyone else replying to this thread, I get bounced around quite a bit on the areas I haven't smoothed yet, and I would like a little more hp to help with future projects, such as the one we are talking about on this thread, so I am hanging on to the implements as they will be needed in the near future.

I have a landscape rake that I used for a variety of projects (and I have used it for smoothing, works really well), but for this project, I used a homemade drag that is essentially a rectangle made of 4 pieces of I-beam iron. It's quite heavy, but the NH pulled it with no trouble (I am going to miss the little tractor). I disced the ever living heck out of it before using the drag, which seemed to help with the large clumps. I used a small boxblade for the final grading.

As far as the rain making ruts, I rented a straw-blower (~$90 a day), which covered the areas I had worked in minutes, not hours. It was quite a wonderful piece of equipment, and very efficient in its use of the material as well. I have attached a few pictures of the last time I used the straw blower, and you can see the large area it covered. If you can't seed right away, it's easy enough to run over the area just before seeding, once you have the ground worked to your satisfaction, with the disc or landscape rake to loosen/smooth the soil.

I live just south of Navarre, not too far from you, about an hour or so.

 

[warhammer]

Got lucky on the cultipacker. I had called around on my recent disc purchase and the local Kubota dealer where I bought that sat next to a used farm implement dealer with the cultipacker. I paid $850 for it and it was only 10 miles down the road from the farm.
At 10 feet wide it covers ground pretty quickly and is cheaper than getting a new 6 foor wide unit shipped in. I was happy it was drawbar as it really weighs quite a bit and I would not look forward to lifting it with the 3 point much. Used culitpackers in Central Texas seem pretty nonexistant from looking at Craigslist.
Since its drawbar attached I am hoping to be able to connect my broadcast spreader and cultipacker to seed and pack in one throw. I have made so many passes over this 9 acres between weed spraying, mowing, raking, subsoiling, discing and cultipacking in the last couple of months that I just want to get it finished and move on to something else.

Warhammer,
Looking at the pics posted on page 3 it appears you are getting it under control. For rough areas I run my landplane/grader over it after tilling to smooth and flatten out the tough spots. I have a lot of areas that are very rough to deal with and this method is working really well for me.

One of the things I need is a good cultipacker to firm everything up, yours looks good.

 

[jdmar]

I originally casted concrete weights for my disc. But even with rebar they ended up breaking slowly. So I cut a 50 gallon drum in half and bolted both halves to the disc. I then filled with old brake rotors/drums (BIL is a mechanic so I get these free) and even gravel. I have drain holes so they do not collect water and rust out as easily. I could then vary the weight until I hit the right ballance. I will try to post a link to the old project.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/welding/37217-3-point-disc-first-welding.html

or you can search under my name and "disc" to see the pic.
It looks like you are getting good results so far.
peter

 

[ToadHill]

WARHAMMER: I love your cultipacker and as a matter of fact I have one just like it. I bought mine about 15 years ago at a farm auction. Nobody back then wanted them and when the bidding was opened I bid $10 yes that right $10 and I was the only bidder.

Getting that thing on and off my truck was a real trip.

 

[warhammer]

Wow that's a great deal!
I unloaded alone and it was a pretty marginal deal. I took a couple of nylon tie downs and after attaching to the FEL toothbar and cultipacker lifted it up off the trailer about 2-3 inches. The FEL was about straight up and down and the back of the tractor was VERY light. I drove the truck out from under the packer and then let it down very slowly. Even that made the tractor move around a bit. I was really happy to have the thing on the ground without killing myself, rolling the tractor over or munching the trailer.
Those old cultipackers weigh a bunch.

WARHAMMER: I love your cultipacker and as a matter of fact I have one just like it. I bought mine about 15 years ago at a farm auction. Nobody back then wanted them and when the bidding was opened I bid $10 yes that right $10 and I was the only bidder.

Getting that thing on and off my truck was a real trip.