Eradicating rocks before tilling

Red_Ranger · Apr 5, 2023

First off, I want to apologize if this post is not in the correct section. I have a farm that I recently purchased and will be looking to do about an acre of food plots on for deer this coming season. To my knowledge, this ground has never been worked and after examining it, I’ve noticed a lot of rock. I have a 25hp tractor to work with, my question is what would be the best way to find and get rid of rocks prior to running a tiller through.

seville009 · Apr 5, 2023

Running a tiller through it will find the rocks.

What I would do with mine (similar setup to yours) is just make some passes with the tiller, then go around and put rocks in the loader and create a rock pile somewhere to dump them.

After you think you have all if the rocks removed, it’ll rain, and you’ll find that hundreds of more rocks have magically appeared……

Red_Ranger · Apr 5, 2023

seville009 said:
Running a tiller through it will find the rocks.

What I would do with mine (similar setup to yours) is just make some passes with the tiller, then go around and put rocks in the loader and create a rock pile somewhere to dump them.

After you think you have all if the rocks removed, it’ll rain, and you’ll find that hundreds of more rocks have magically appeared……

The problem is these are big rocks and I don’t want to damage the tiller

seville009 · Apr 5, 2023

The rocks won’t damage the tiller. It will bang and bounce around alot. Presumably it has a slip clutch.

I never broke or bent anything on my tiller, and I worked it hard. They are built tough.

Yander · Apr 5, 2023

Plow it then disk it. Otherwise do what Seville recommended take a light pass check for rocks dig them out.

With the tiller you can tell you've hit a rock sometimes before you unearth it. if you have another person helping you you can point it out as you're doing it.

Hitting a rock once with a tiller sometimes can't be avoided hitting it twice can be.

I don't like to hit them either but as was said those tillers are pretty tough. A big enough Rock will jam and share a pin or slip clutch or just kill your tractor.

If it kills the tractor, my advice would be get the tractor started, with the PTO off, quickly since it has been running hard. Just let it idle as you dig the rock out

Jstpssng · Apr 5, 2023

I've plowed, harrowed, disced, and tilled. Picked rocks and done it all over again. I still have rocks every year... some big enough to trip the bottom on the plow.
If your climate has frost there will always be rocks working their way up. The potato fields north of me have been worked for 150 years yet they still are picking rocks.
I usually pick every spring, disc it and pick rocks again. Then as I'm tilling I stop and pick the bigger ones which work their way up through.

mikester · Apr 5, 2023

Do you have frost? New rocks will grow every spring. You will find them by tilling. Pick them by hand. Next spring a new crop will grow.

Yander · Apr 5, 2023

There are rocks and then there are ROCKs. I can just go straight in and use the tiller on my yard, my son's yard not so much.

His yard is nothing but rocks all sizes and I wouldn't let him till without plowing and disking and then see if the tiller needs to be used.

While a tiller can handle a few rocks, I have my limits of what I'll let my tiller do.

jeff9366 · Apr 5, 2023

Yanmar SA 425 is an 1,830 pound, under 25-horsepower tractor.

Not enough tractor weight, not enough power to pull a Disk Harrow of effective weight.

I suggest a Middlebuster, AKA Potato Plow, with replaceable plow blades. Ample for a one (1) acre food plot. Relatively cheap, low draft resistance (low traction requirement), short operator learning curve.