Middle Buster/Potato Harvester for sub-compact Kubota

[ROUSTABOUT]

We use an old mule pull middle buster. Except pull it with tractor and chain.

 

[jaxs]

We use an old mule pull middle buster. Except pull it with tractor and chain.

Atta boy,may as well have a little fun in the process. My 100 pound mom could handle that thing better than me and my 190 pound brothers.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Atta boy,may as well have a little fun in the process. My 100 pound mom could handle that thing better than me and my 190 pound brothers.

Well, with a chain pulling it, you can tilt it side to side to kind of steer it. Keep it in the center of the row. I remember them pulling it with a horse, but I was little. Horse died and we got an old Allis Chalmers, pull type disc that had a seat on it. Tiller too, that was it, rest was hand tools. No planter, no cultivator.

 

[Rockbadchild]

We always used a row hiller to plant then and a harvester to harvest and it's working well.

 

[arto98607]

One year mine looked pretty good after hilling, but then one morning few deer came and ate all the tops and the growth pretty well stopped!

I was told deer don't eat potato tops.....


Before hilling:




After hilling:



Hiller:

 

[Rockbadchild]

we had moose digging up potato's and eating some one time...

 

[mo1]

Potato plow or potato digger? Neither. When I grew up on a farm every family had 1/4 to 1/2 acre of potatoes and no one owned a specialty plow for potatoes. We used the same bedders used to throw up beds for row crops every year. I still use the 2 bottom bedder bought new in 1958 with the 801 in my signature. I suggest you do the same because one plow can be taken off and the other moved to center for digging then reconfigured for other uses until next potato crop. A single bottom like pictured in post 3 can't build rows on your tractor because wheels can't be spread far enough apart. You can mount 1 plow off-center on a bedder or tool bar,make a pass then make a second pass to complete bed. The key to plowing potatoes up without cutting them is setting point to right depth.
Chains help tremendously on ice and a little on firm ground but can't equal lug treads in loose soil or mud.

Row spacing for the potato plow with a single centered shank such as seen in #3 would be the same as the wheel centerlines. That kind of a tool would only be useful on a small compact such as the subcompact Kubota the original poster mentioned. Otherwise you would indeed have to run your wheel centerlines at three times the row spacing to straddle three rows to just plow up the middle one, which would put you in something the size of a typical six-cylinder ag tractor to do this with typical row spacings. Or, you would need to make your row spacing very wide which would be silly as you would have few rows of potatoes and a big wide area of unused soil in between the rows.

The furrowing shovel for the potato plow in #3 can be bought separately from the rest of the unit, and it will bolt to a any cultivator shank with 7/16" bolt holes on a 2" hole spacing. This is what I do, and I do have to run them off-center on a toolbar-mounted cultivator, and it works well.

 

[BXAK]

I want to thank everyone for the replies. I've decided to buy a compact middle buster and install AG tires.

 

[Williy]

When the leaves just start to come up you should spray
with a mixture of vinegar, jalapenos, cayenne pepper, salt
water put in blender mix well and spray one bite and no
deer, rabbit will be back for seconds

willy