Looking For Advice for Building Berms

[gottaearnit]

I was hoping to get some advice from the more experienced on the best way to go about building berms / raised beds on a farm. I just bought a little over 50 acres last year and I'm planning on putting in a 12-15 acre orchard. Probably try to establish 5 acres at a time for the next three years. I've done a lot of research looking at hillers, row builders, bed shapers, etc. From what I can tell, many of them are designed to get 4" to 8" in height with rows spaced minimally to get the most rows per acre. In my situation, I would like to build 12"-18" high berms between 48" and 60" wide spaced about 30 foot apart. What would you guys recommend for the best approach to this. I currently have a Ford 3415 and a CAT 236D skid steer. I would love to utilize one of those if possible. I don't mind putting money out for the right attachments, but they will be used a couple of times to put in the orchard and then probably never needed again. Just want to make sure I put the money into the right approach first. As well, I have been a machinist for over 25 years and have my own machine shop, so building something custom is not out of the question.

 

[mddorange]

:welcome:
To the TBN forum. You have come to the right place to get answers.

Sorry that I can't help but the wife wants to put in fruit trees so I am interested in what you find out.

 

[leonz]

You have two realistic options.


A Lilliston Lehman Rolling cultivator or a Northwest Tiller strawberry bedder to make raised beds. The Lilliston rolling cultivator will need land preparation meaning plowing, discing, rock picking, then ridge bed building.

A Northwest tiller will let you till annually and build new beds every year but a mechanical picker will be a must to make the job easier after the first pass with a plow and small disc harrow. Using a rock picker in the orchard rows before planting the trees will aid the root growth of the trees there too.

You could use the strawberry bedder to make the first orchard rows as well by creating a raised bed to to keep the roots from becoming infected with root blight.

As far as orchard building goes you should examine the espallier method of orchard construction where the fruit trees are planted close together and the tree limbs are trained to follow fence lines made from bare wire like grape vines. it reduces the work needed to trim, prune and spray fruit trees and permits easier work in an orchard when harvesting as the fruit is only as high as the fence lines highest wire.
The fruit production is more concentrated with more trees in each row and the fruit from the trees is no different in quality and much larger and you can simply till in manure and compost in the row and lay down weed fabric on both sides of the raised bed fence posts to eliminate weeds.

 

[gottaearnit]

Thanks for the input Leonz. I should have mentioned that the orchard is going to be chestnut trees. I don't think the espallier method would be an option, but I will take a look at the attachments you recommended.

 

[ovrszd]

I think you need to rethink your design. Every 5ft of berm length you are going to move 1 cubic yard of dirt. I'm using your numbers to determine that. Averaging your berm width and height. Wow. So how many feet of berm are you building per acre? Times 5 acres. Times .2 cubic yards of dirt per foot. Wow.

Maybe hire a farmer to come in with a moldboard plow and create dead furrows every 35 feet?

 

[gottaearnit]

Hi Ovrszd. I want to put in 11 berms (@30 ft spacing) about 650 ft in length. I want to elevate the planting beds for the chestnuts due to the clay soil here in NC. They definitely don't do good with wet feet.

 

[ovrszd]

So 11 x 650ft = 7,150ft. 7,150 x .2 = 1,430 cubic yards of material.

That's significant. If hauling that material with my 5 cubic yard scraper I would have to load/unload 286 times.

Is your plan to excavate the material from between the berms? If so aren't you stripping all the top soil from between the berms to build them? What is expected to grow in this stripped area?

 

[gottaearnit]

I figured if I took 3" of depth from the 25' available between berms, that would give me 15" high x 60" wide berms. Should leave me plenty to plant turf type grasses for the orchard floor.

 

[airbiscuit]

Would you be able you use a tiller to loosen up the soil, and then use a HEAVY rear blade to grade the soil to the berms? Then use the skid steer for the finishing touches.

 

[ovrszd]

I figured if I took 3" of depth from the 25' available between berms, that would give me 15" high x 60" wide berms. Should leave me plenty to plant turf type grasses for the orchard floor.

Yep. That will work.

As suggested by airbiscuit till it heavily to completely break up the sod. This will make it much easier to move and shape. Then you'll have to till the valleys again to get it loose enough to reseed. Not familiar with your topsoil thickness. You are probably going to be down to bare clay in most areas. This project is going to take many, many, many hours. But it'll be good for your Soul.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

I would get someone with a small bulldozer to come in and build up the berms. Dozers are designed to not compact the soil much. If you only take 3" or so off the top, you should still be able to get grasses to grow between the berms. Small dozer guys around here get about $75 per hour, and they can move a lot of topsoil in an hour.

 

[gottaearnit]

Thanks guys. I do appreciate the responses. Definitely feel I can get it done like you said airbiscuit. Also, gonna get in touch with someone with a dozer to quote it. Then weigh the cost vs the amount of work I would have to put in.

 

[ovrszd]

Yep. Try to think outside the box and look at all alternatives. Anxious to see the solution so post your decisions!!!!

Welcome to TBN.

 

[bdog]

I think a dozer with a 6 way blade could run down the middle throwing dirt to the right, turn around and repeat and after a few passes have what you want. Might look at a bigger dozer simply because of blade width. The closer the blade width is to 1/2 of your 25’ the easier it will be to make long passes throwing the dirt to the outside.

 

[ovrszd]

Not being familiar with your current sod situation I can only use my experiences here. My sod is thick enough that if I try to peel off 3" to make a berm before I till it I'll end up with huge slabs of sod in the berm. Then I'll fight them trying to smooth and shape the berm. If your sod is thick you may want to till first. Then the dozer would make quick work of your project. In the operator's eyes he's just building small terraces. Easy task. If you can stand the cost.

 

[leonz]

If we can find him a good whirlwind terracing plow he will not have to do anything other than getting the right size mule as the whirlwind rotary plow will bury the sod in one pass.

He still needs gypsum to dissolve the clay and lime to bring up the PH though.

 

[gottaearnit]

I don't really have the sod issue as this 5 acres was farmed for years up until when I bought it last year. I plan on spraying to kill the little bit of weeds that have come up or burn it prior to moving the soil.

 

[LouNY]

Lease or hire a heavy disk first,
then follow up with D6H with a 6 way blade.

 

[Egon]

Till the soil first and move it using an angle blade to get the desired berm shape. A road grader would be the perfect tool.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Just out of curiosity...are these native American chestnuts? If so, where did you find blight-resistant stock?