Primary/heavy tillage w/ BCS850

cmyoung2 · Mar 16, 2015

I have a BCS 850 with about100lbs wheel weights. Looking for a heavy primary tillage tool. Would love a rotary plow, but Uncle Sam says I owe way too much to be able to afford one. So, how effective is a moldboard plow with the 850? We have clay soils, not what I would consider as heavy, and few rocks. Some of the tillage will be the current garden, some will be new ground, mostly pasture, to expand the garden. I may can get the wheels filled with foam, no local dealer do it. Since we don't have much level ground, would the double/rotating plow be worth the cost if the moldboard is effective? My other tillage tools are the tiller, potato plow, and a furrower(?). Also, would duals help or hurt? what kind of tire spacing is best? I have a couple of sets of extensions and an extra set of wheels.

oldmech · Mar 17, 2015

HI! Moldboard plow is a good implement. No dangerous for operator. You cannot brook tractor gears. If you hit rock wheels spins.

But Make good plowing is ART. Adjusting the moldboard plow is not easy. Need some try.

For plowing you need good traction and the best is more weights .Duals are not good. I like tire chains because self cleaning

For me. I built steel wheels with 4.5x 2 in pads. Spacing is 16 in. between or inside tire

Good luck Oldmech

farmerboybill · Mar 18, 2015

You need weight, traction, speed, and clearance to moldboard plow. A moldboard plow will never do as good a job as the rotary plow, but it will do a decent job if you fulfill those 4 requirements. This is a picture of me plowing with my 850 when it had the V-twin Briggs from March 2009. From what I remember, the plow didn't really invert the soil, it just sort of pushed it to the side. This is very mellow black dirt that had been rototilled the year previous, not hard clay I didn't have the speed or traction required. As you can see, I had old turf tires on the tractor. Speed is a big concern. When moldboard plowing my farm ground I am going 4-5 mph on a 14,000 pound tractor pulling 5-18 inch bottoms. I'll attach a picture of that from this past spring.

As far as setting up the tractor, you just need to put the plow in the hole on the toolbar that gives you the proper bite - about 10" per pass. If you have the 2-way plow, you need to have both sides set up the same -20 inches-ish inside of tire to inside of tire. Duals aren't gonna work at all because you have to be able to drop the one wheel in the furrow. It's going to be a workout, the machine will constantly want to turn into the plowed area. locking the diff will help, but your job is to keep it from turning

Normangeese · Apr 4, 2015

I'm going to post my dual rotary plow up on ebay in a few days, email if your interested and I'll send you the link.

Here is the link.
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=151640131100

leonz · Apr 4, 2015

cmyoung2 said:
I have a BCS 850 with about 100 lbs. wheel weights.
Looking for a heavy primary tillage tool.

Would love a rotary plow, but Uncle Sam says I owe way too
much to be able to afford one.

So, how effective is a moldboard plow with the 850? We have clay soils,
not what I would consider as heavy, and few rocks.

Some of the tillage will be the current garden, some will be new ground,
mostly pasture too expand the garden.

I may can get the wheels filled with foam, no local dealer do it.

Since we don't have much level ground, would the double/rotating plow be
worth the cost if the moldboard is effective?

My other tillage tools are the tiller, potato plow, and a furrower(?).

Also, would duals help or hurt?

what kind of tire spacing is best?

I have a couple of sets of extensions and an extra set of wheels.

About your tiller:

1. you may just need new tiller blades.

OR you need to spray fluid film on them after a good cleaning
at the car wash with hot soapy water.

2. about added weight.

a. fill your tires with windshield washer fluid using
one of the inexpensive tire filling valves from Gemplers.

A1. you think you have bouncing tires now The foamed ones
are so much worse to use on any machine let alone a small
tiller.

B. Buy a new set of snow blower chains for the tires after you fill them.
( I have an unused set I will sell you that may need to be made larger-
adding cross chains and side chains for my cost and frieght to your house.

Make sure you fill the tires with the stem at the 12 o'clock
position put one gallon +- in each tire reinflate them to the
maximum cold inflation rating for the tire size with the tire
chains installed(be sure to have the chains tightened all the
way on both sides before you put the valve core back in and
inflate them.

Using deep mined gypsum will dissolve your clay in your garden.