tree planting auger

[tree grower]

I wish to fabricate a tree planting auger which attaches to my Ford 1210 in the position of a belly-mount mower. This is for inter-planting in rows of Christmas trees. Before I reinvent the wheel, I am interested in any thoughts or recommendations from this audience. I call your attention to the Auger Transporter by CTE CTE Mfg. - About | Facebook. This is moved around like a wheelbarrow, but I want my tractor to do all the work. I don't want a 3PH unit, because I want the perfect visibility of a hole being dug two ft to the right of my gas pedal
I envision a 6-8" auger driven by a hydraulic motor. I propose the structure to hang from the rear mounts of the FEL, with a possible stabilizer to the trailer hitch. In transport mode the auger will be positioned behind the front tire�n front of the brake pedals. At the point of planting, the auger will move horizontally ~2 ft . The rotating auger will be lowered via hydraulic piston to desired hole depth (~10") , then raised, retracted to transport position, and onward to the next hole. This is stony soil so down pressure will be needed.
I am confident that the auxiliary hydraulics which operate the FEL will operate the up/down and left/right of this creation, but I have no experience with hydraulic motors. The up/down will need to operate at the same time as the auger motor, so I may need a PTO powered pump. ANY thoughts?
I picture the auger with attached motor and raise/lower piston mounted on the end of a 3 x 3 beam which moves left and right inside the next larger size square beam. The larger beam contains the l/r cylinder, and is the structure which actually attaches to the underside of the tractor (FEL mounts)
Has anybody seen anything like this, or have any ideas or cautions? Thanks in advance.

 

[M5farms]

rent a skid steer with auger attachment ,

 

[jeff9366]

Before I reinvent the wheel, I am interested in thoughts or recommendations from this audience.

Rent a skid steer with auger attachment.

Which has the advantages of being in front and being reversible to unstick.


Consider a $225 to $450 Bucket Spade bucket attachment. Bucket Spades offered in numerous widths, lengths, shapes and weights.

MORE: FEL bucket spades site:www.tractorbynet.com - Google Search

 

[texasranger556]

Could you bolt something to the side of your bucket? That way you could use the weight of the loader to provide down force, and it would be off to the side so you can see what is going on easier than in front of the bucket. Sort of like a lane shark how it bolts to a bucket.

 

[Diggin It]

Not sure what your resources or abilities are, but an idea ....

I hate those one person and two person post hole augers only because of the potential to destroy ribs and arms. But if you could mount one to the side of the FEL bucket securely enough, it might work. You'd have to concoct a way to control the throttle and speed. Use the FEL for up and down. Don't know if they reverse though.

 

[snymat68]

HD25 Series Post Hole Diggers | Land Pride

 

[Diggin It]

^^ Looks interesting but I can't find any pricing on it. Why list something for sale only to say 'Call for Price'?

Then again, I always have trouble figuring out where your post ends and the advertising begins.

 

[snymat68]

^^ Looks interesting but I can't find any pricing on it. Why list something for sale only to say 'Call for Price'?

Then again, I always have trouble figuring out where your post ends and the advertising begins.

My guess is they're several, 3, 4 thousand. Call any land pride dealer and ask.

 

[tree grower]

Thanks for the replies. I have a skidsteer, and have used a bucket-mounted auger for planting, but it takes up too much real estate, and is way over-powered for what I need. I just want some small diesel powered hydraulics to replace my round-pointed shovel. In following the similar threads at the bottom of this page I found a Youtube video of a German rig Erdbohrgerat mit Parallelfuhrung - YouTube This isn't the design I had in mind, but functionally is spot on.

 

[snymat68]

Thanks for the replies. I have a skidsteer, and have used a bucket-mounted auger for planting, but it takes up too much real estate, and is way over-powered for what I need. I just want some small diesel powered hydraulics to replace my round-pointed shovel. In following the similar threads at the bottom of this page I found a Youtube video of a German rig Erdbohrgerat mit Parallelfuhrung - YouTube This isn't the design I had in mind, but functionally is spot on.

That's pretty slick.

 

[Fuddy1952]

To me it all depends on frequency of use and quantity of trees.
As a kid my Grandfather planted Christmas trees using a Farmall tractor and a single disk harrow, similar to this but larger diameter and mounted in center of tractor.
He made long rows about 10-15 ft. apart. He grew a variety of maybe four type trees.
We kids went along spacing trees maybe every 10 ft., it went pretty fast just flop soil over root ball, the trench held water.

 

[nyone]

How big are the trees your planting? A ford 1210 is only a 16hp machine so not well suited to major earth engaging attachments.

To build a whole other hudraulic system just to plant trees is going to be expensive and fast.

If your just planting 1-2ft trees a normal shovel works well. Your going to have to hand backfill anyway.

 

[rd_macgregor]

I bought a Belltec hydraulic auger with SSQA and flat-face couplers a few years ago. With both 9" and 14" augers, it came to less than $2k (Canadian). There are several other manufacturers of similar units. The auger unit works great. However, I have found only one significant shortcoming of this set-up; in my tractor I can't see exactly where the tip of the auger is hitting the ground. I bought a camera system to correct this problem, but haven't gotten around to installing it yet.
Unless you are very adept at mechanical design and fabrication (including the hydraulic components), I'd suggest going with an out-of-the-box solution instead. Even discounting the value of your time/labor, a pre-made unit might be cheaper than the parts cost of a home-made one.

 

[Diggin It]

I'm still intrigued by the idea of a self contained gasoline powered unit attached to the side of the FEL bucket if one could adapt the controls to be used from the seat. I'm not sure about what kind of torque forces would be involved though.

 

[countrybumpkin]

^^ Looks interesting but I can't find any pricing on it. Why list something for sale only to say 'Call for Price'?

Then again, I always have trouble figuring out where your post ends and the advertising begins.

They run about $2000 give or take a little.

 

[tree grower]

I like your motto Life is short. Play with tractors! That should be on a tee shirt

 

[D2Cat]

The implement you're needing will depend on the size of trees you are planting. When I planted trees for a Christmas tree farm they came in bundles of 25 or 50 trees. The bundle was about 3" in diameter and the trees were about 12" tall.

The county had a Christmas tree planter anyone could borrow. It could be pulled by any small tractor. I used a B8200. It was a 3pt hitch with a couple of angles iron brackets coming back to a metal tractor seat for the "planter". A "V" wedge was about 12" deep with an opening of about 4" in the back and it set under the 3pt arms. The wedge opened the ground the tree was placed in the slot. Under the seat were two square edged wheel borrow wheel set at an angle. The weight of the planter person over the wheels packed the ground back down around the tree. Above the wedge was a platform to hold the bundles of trees.

You could plant trees at a fast rate, and the survival rate was nearly 100%.

 

[Ford850]

I'm just going to add the OP's description of how he intends to use this auger: "This is for inter-planting in rows of Christmas trees." Most of the replies are thinking he's laying out new rows of trees on open ground. What he's doing (I think) is interplanting new seedlings in bare spots of existing rows of trees, where a tree has been harvested.

 

[tree grower]

As noted by Ford850 this is for interplanting, not for planting new rows. Per D2CAT, this little Ford could not handle a tree planter. After 35 yrs of planting by hand, my old social security joints would like some relief from wielding the shovel. By hydraulically digging a hole about the size of a 2-liter soda bottle, I can follow with the bare-root trees, backfilling with nice loose soil. A major gap in my designer brain regards the physics of hydraulic motors. My tractor's hydraulic pump puts out 4.3 GPM @ 1850 psi @ 2700 RPM. Most hydraulic motors require a much greater volume, and I don't like to run continuously at much over 2000 rpm. At this point I need to study my 'Hydraulics for Dummies' before firing up the welder.

 

[Ford850]

That German rig is a beauty.