Rototiller questions...

rambler · Sep 29, 2009

A tiller goes pretty shallow - a few inches is all. It will not go as deep as a plow or chisel or ripper or subsoiler.

A chisel plow or subsoiler can go 2 feet - tho probably not with a compact tractor, and you would need a very strong implement & tractor to work through roots & stumps.

A disk will roll over most of the obsticals and you won't notice them so much. But it will show you where some of the stumps are. It will go about as deep as the tiller.

You want a tiller that will roll up & over the stumps. It will really bounce & rock on you, you'll have a heck of a ride for that many acres.

Once in a while it will stall out the tractor.

I cleared up a very small area of my grove with a tiller. I ran the tractor & tiller at idle speed. When I hit something tough, it would kill the tractor engine. This was preferable to hitting it at full speed & twisting something off. If you get a beefy tiller, your tractor pto becomes the weak point, and can break the pto shaft inside the tractor.

I'd like a bulldozer with a set of rear rippers to go through, work the ground up deep & pull up the old roots on 6 or 7 acres. Will be a lot of work picking those all up, but - that's a big area to till & clrear out stump bits the hard way.

Good luck.

--->Paul

Egon · Sep 29, 2009

Several years ago a friend insisted I use his 65 HP. tractor with rototiller. One pass and it was down about 12 inches. More passes would have gone deeper.

The tractor had a creeper gear and was running at 850 RPM's. The tiller was a heavy duty model. It found many new rocks in my fields, broke a few shear pins but otherwise all was good.

In your case I'd give the tiller a try and see how it works. If you do not like the initial results you can always pull some rippers through to find the stumps.

jenkinsph · Sep 29, 2009

Egon said:
Several years ago a friend insisted I use his 65 HP. tractor with rototiller. One pass and it was down about 12 inches. More passes would have gone deeper.

The tractor had a creeper gear and was running at 850 RPM's. The tiller was a heavy duty model. It found many new rocks in my fields, broke a few shear pins but otherwise all was good.

In your case I'd give the tiller a try and see how it works. If you do not like the initial results you can always pull some rippers through to find the stumps.

I might add the tiller I recommended has a slip clutch, so no shear pins to break. I made the initial pass about 4" deep and picked all the trash up, then made a second pass 7 to 8"s deep. Had very little trash to pickup at this point, mostly ran the land plane to smooth everything out making it flat or planar.

So if e.myers is planning on a 43 hp 4120 and a 673 tiller with slip clutch I think he will be in good shape.

Steve