Help! going nuts with conflicting advice!!

[Bob Vanderlinde]

Hi,
I'm new to farmiing-- lets get that out of the way!
But I seem to be getting more conflicting advice than I know what to do with!

I'm trying to get a 40 acre field of goldenrod and other weeds (some timothy and clover but not much) back into hay. I just bought the land and my tractor MF 596, and a 7 foot brushhog and just finished mowing down the weeds to about 10 inches. Found only one rock with my FEL in the entire field of weeds. I want to plow and disc it and use glycosolate to kill off the goldenrod and other weeds. I just went to a big tractor dealer locally who deals in new and used equipment, and he told me he has no 4 bottom plows used for sale--- and they are hard to come by. He also told me a 14 foot disc would cost me about 15 grand new!! (sticker shock for me-- or call it ignorance of implement prices). Anyways, I look on Tractorhouse.com and I see a John Deere 105 10 foot ofset disc with discs in the front and looks like circular tines in the rear on a second axel for $3495. It's down south so lets say it costs $500 t ship to me--
Bottom line: is it unreasonable to expect to find a used 10 foot disker for this price-- when the new one the dealer is showing me is 15 grand!!
What am I missing?

A couple other things: I'm retired so I have all the time I want to do these things- this land is my "retirement home"

 

[slowzuki]

In NY you should be able to find a 4 bottom plow on Craigslist for 500-1000$ unless you want spring reset trip, that would get you to 1500-2000$. Don't turn down a 3 bottom either. A 10 ft disc is about 500 - 3000$ used private sale, again shouldn't be too hard to find one.

An offset disc or 1 way disc is for primary tillage like a plow and is very expensive.

You'll want to keep the weeds mowed down tight for a couple of years. If you lime the field this fall you might be surprised how well the grasses come back on their own. Golden rod is a good sign the soil is getting acidic.

 

[Egon]

Okay; just some more confusion when you are talking about width and price.

Model 400 Single Offset Breaking Disc

Not all disks are created equally. Just for example here is a site that has a table showing width, weight and HP. required to pull their disks :thumbsup:

 

[tcreeley]

The goldenrod will go if you start to use the land- mow it, mow again, mow again. That's true for the weeds too.
If you want a quality hay crop, plow, harrow, fertilize (test the soil) and re seed it. Stay away from sludge for fertilizer- heavy metals and toxins- causes colic/death in horses.
Weed killer is kind of lousy to put on a field that some animal or human is going to be getting food from. Would you drink a cup of weed killer- carcinogenic.
Just start using your fields etc and the goldenrod and weeds will die off.
Simplest way is frequent mowing. Go lower than 10 in if you can. The clover and timothy in the field will come back on their own.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Look to Ohio for implements. I bought a 5 bottom hydraulic reset plow down near columbus for around $400. The plow was a semi mount MF 880 and the 5 bottom was removable making it a 4 bottom plow. That plow up here in WNY is a $2500-$4000 plow. Same with 10-12' transport discs. They are much cheaper in Ohio as the smaller farms are all gone and near Columbus a lot of the farm land is gone completely so small implements are useless there. Ebay and Craigslist are good sites to see whats around. The plow will haul back on a 16' utility trailer easily, the disc will be a little more difficult but can still be done or you can look locally if your in no hurry as they come up often.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

In NY you should be able to find a 4 bottom plow on Craigslist for 500-1000$ unless you want spring reset trip, that would get you to 1500-2000$. Don't turn down a 3 bottom either. A 10 ft disc is about 500 - 3000$ used private sale, again shouldn't be too hard to find one.

An offset disc or 1 way disc is for primary tillage like a plow and is very expensive.

You'll want to keep the weeds mowed down tight for a couple of years. If you lime the field this fall you might be surprised how well the grasses come back on their own. Golden rod is a good sign the soil is getting acidic.

The plows here in that price range will require almost that much to get into good shape. I sold off my MF 82 4 bottom 14 inch plow just because it was given to me as payment and once I priced out what it was going to cost to make useable it was smarter to just sell it off for $400 since I already had a 4 bottom plow in much nicer shape with hydraulic resets. Implements in this size range have sky rocketed the last 5-10 years as more and more people buy them for food plots and hobby farms. Their in high demand here in my section of WNY.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

When comparing disks, try and compare apples to apples. Like Egon said, "Not all disks are created equally" and that is the simple truth. I think that you need to be looking at offset vs tandem, disk blade size and type, frame types and sizes. Many, many things to consider and any GOOD new disk of the size that you are looking at is going to be costly.

Good luck in your search.

 

[foreman Etexas]

Spray it with Grazon P+D or Grazonnext there are No grazing restrictions it will not hurt anything.Humm!!I believe that food you get in the store,well im pretty sure its had some kinda herbicide or maybe even a pesticide on it at one time.:laughing: Its just something that has to be done,I spray my hay meadows with (500lbs fert.,with alittle 2-4d to the acre,and spray my others cattle pastures with (P+D 2.5GAL.) to 300gal.water(sprays 20ac.) then I spray my fence lines with (killz-all)weedkiller


If you do spray hay pasture with herbicide do need to wait atleast 28days before cutting/baling!!

JohnDeere 8ft offset pretty good shape went for $9oo,I regret not bidding

 

[Mistyridgefarm]

Ditto post above. I reclaimed 70 acres of fields in two seasons by mowing, fertilizing, and scratch seeding.

Mow in late spring just as weeds start seed head. Mow again mid summer preferably in the middle of a hot fry spell. Last time is late summer. If you have the time, you can get a lot done in one season by hogging weekly for the first two months of season when things are growing fast. Mow no higher than 4". The grass will jump up and each mowing keeps the weeds from recovering. Then let the grass jump up and mow at before.

It may be cheaper to hire the big tillage than buy a large disk. I just broke a 10 acre field after second cutting. Hated to do it as the grass was really good but it was way rough and made haying a real back breaker. I used a 2 bottom($250 used) with shear bolt and got almost done when a submerged boulder tore it up. I have a 4 bottom with trips I picked up at auction for $140 but need to convert to 2 or 3 bottom to pull with my tractor.

I picked up a used JD 8 foot pull disk for $1200 in good shape and cross disked. I still have a bunch of hours pulling the rake to get all the stones out and finish grade. Basically, I'm just trying to show how much will go into just 10 acres if you break it. I'm not finished yet but it will be around 5 hours per acre or more.

Oh, while I'm not a fan of total burn down chemicals, a before Easter treatment of 2-4D will do wonders on thistle. You can even just spot spray.

Good luck.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

If you use anything like 2-4D make sure you don't have any vineyards near by. You will find you made some very unhappy neighbors and also open yourself up to potential lawsuits as 2-4D is very toxic to vineyards and have damaged vineyards over a mile away from where it has been sprayed when conditions are right.