What to look for in a used 2-bottom plow?

[mo1]

I am looking at 2-bottom plows for preparing some new ground. I've tried many methods, but trying to get through years of old CRP is a chore, so it seems flipping it may be the easiest method. I assume a two-bottom is plenty for an MX5200, and I don't know if the plow size make a huge difference or not. Most people don't even state it on the ad. It won't see a ton of use so I can't justify anything new here.

What is good price range? Are there any issues I should be looking at to see if it is broken or may soon need something replaced? I assume parts aren't that easy to come by on these older units, but may be wrong given some of the brands are still around.

Moldboard plowing usually works well unless there are stumps or large roots, in which case it will hang up. They handle rocks well unless it's a really huge boulder that is big enough to trip the bottom or stop the tractor. I've turned over plenty of softball to basketball sized rocks with a moldboard plow. I can't say anything about disc plows as I've never used one nor known anybody who had.

The plow size makes a big difference in how well a tractor can pull it. The amount of draft required to pull a plow is based on how much soil the bottom moves. A wider bottom will move more soil along its width, but it also generally runs deeper too, as a plow depth is generally half the bottom width. Ballpark is that it takes close to twice as much power to pull a 16" bottom than a 12" bottom. 2 bottom plows are usually 12" or 14" bottoms but a few are 16s. You should have enough power to pull any of those in about any soil, if you have any problems it would be wheel slip depending on what tires you have and how much ballast you have. If your soil is not clay, you have ag tires, a gear transmission, plenty of ballast, your plow has coulters and good sharp shins and shares, you might be able to use a 3-14 but to be honest sticking with a 2 bottom would be the safest option.

A typical price on a 2 bottom plow is usually in the $200-400 range if it's in the typical old, rusty, and with worn shins and shares but complete and not broken condition. If it's a pretty new one it might be closer to a grand as a new one is $1200-1500 or so, several places still make and sell new one and two-bottom plows for food plots and such. Look to see if anything is obviously bent or cracked, or missing. Plows are generally pretty durable so it's generally just wear parts needing replaced unless somebody put a Grade 8 shear bolt in a shear bolt bottom or has a trip bottom rust up, hooks it up to a much more powerful than required tractor, and then hooks a stump with the plow and bends or breaks something. Wear parts vary in how easy they are to get, the older the plow the harder they are to get, you can generally get shins and shares for most bottoms made since about the late '50s/early '60s if they were made by a major maker. Any structural part is going to be difficult to get though, unless you got one of the new ones that's still being made.

 

[LD1]

As mentioned....plow size makes a big difference.

A plow "usually" plows a depth that is half its width if set properly.

So imagine a 2x12 plow is plowing 24" wide and 6" deep. Thats 144 sq in of dirt the plow is facing.

A 2x14 would plow 28x7...thats 196 sq in

A 2x16 would plow 32x8......256 sq in. Which is pretty close to twice as hard as a 2x12 as mentioned.

I have both a 3x14 and a 3x16 plow I use for the MX.

the 3x14 plows 42x7...or 294 sq in
The 3x16 plows 48x8 or 384 sq in.

Now you didnt mention tires or ballast. I have R1's....4wd....loaded tires....PLUS 600lbs of cast weights. And I can tell you that the 3x16 is the hard MAX. Have to occasionally bump it up a bit to keep moving if the conditions are just right. But the 3x14 was never an issue, even before I added the cast weigths.

So pretty much ANY 2-bottom plow is gonna be a walk in the park for a MX wearing R1 tires. 2x12 plows were pulled all day with 8n fords that were about 30% lighter, smaller rubber, and 2wd.

What are your plans for after plowing? Plowing leaves a very rough field. You have to disc it if you want anything that resembles a level and smooth field. And the disc plows leave a VERY rough finish compared to a moldboard. Watch some you-tube videos of a disc plow. They do turn a nice furrow....rather that throw dirt and looks like crap IMO.

Also, what are your plans for planting stuff? Unless you plan on planting it with something.....erosion is gonna be a problem and make your nice field have ditches washed in them

 

[JohnnyMX]

My MX has tires filled for ballast and R4 tires. My dealer sold me a Landpride RTR1572 tiller that can't handle the rock/clay/residue even though I told him what I was up against. My inexperience cost me on that one at the time. I also have a field cultivator which does great on the rocks, but you can only pull for 5 feet before the residue builds up and lifts it out of the ground and it acts more like a landscape rake. My process today is to spray the field, mow as close as possible, landscape rake off residual, use the field cultivator to pull up tiller-killer rocks and try to cut up the roots/sod, rake or grapple the rocks off as needed, then till the area. The cultivator and tiller work fine on a second till and after rock removal. Looking to work up a few more areas for food plots, wildflower fields, xmas trees. I tried planting xmas trees with a spade and 8 out of 10 time times would hit a rock.

It seems like a lot of effort to get to bare dirt, so I assume this is where an old-school plow comes in and just cuts and flips. I wish the field cultivator had coulters and maybe then it would be just what I needed for new ground. I don't have a ton of area that I would want to break, so selling my tiller and getting a more HD one isn't in the cards, but has crossed my mind.

I assume if I could flip it upside down, I could pick the large rocks and just till the first pass to smooth it out or is that being optimistic?

 

[mo1]

My MX has tires filled for ballast and R4 tires. My dealer sold me a Landpride RTR1572 tiller that can't handle the rock/clay/residue even though I told him what I was up against. My inexperience cost me on that one at the time. I also have a field cultivator which does great on the rocks, but you can only pull for 5 feet before the residue builds up and lifts it out of the ground and it acts more like a landscape rake. My process today is to spray the field, mow as close as possible, landscape rake off residual, use the field cultivator to pull up tiller-killer rocks and try to cut up the roots/sod, rake or grapple the rocks off as needed, then till the area. The cultivator and tiller work fine on a second till and after rock removal. Looking to work up a few more areas for food plots, wildflower fields, xmas trees. I tried planting xmas trees with a spade and 8 out of 10 time times would hit a rock.

It seems like a lot of effort to get to bare dirt, so I assume this is where an old-school plow comes in and just cuts and flips. I wish the field cultivator had coulters and maybe then it would be just what I needed for new ground. I don't have a ton of area that I would want to break, so selling my tiller and getting a more HD one isn't in the cards, but has crossed my mind.

I assume if I could flip it upside down, I could pick the large rocks and just till the first pass to smooth it out or is that being optimistic?

A conventional moldboard plow would be your best bet here as breaking ground is exactly what they were designed to do. A field cultivator is a secondary tillage tool, you use this to break up clods and ridges left after a primary tillage tool. Usually a field cultivator is used after a chisel plow in a conservation tillage setup where not all of the residue is buried, a moldboard plow is generally followed by a tandem disc as they are heavier and break up the larger furrows better. You could use a field cultivator that is reasonably heavy after a moldboard plow though. You would use some kind of drag after a field cultivator or disc to further smooth the seedbed, such as a spring tooth drag or a chain drag. Often a field cultivator will have a spring tooth drag mounted to its rear, saving a pass over the field.

A rototiller after a plow works very well but is slow. It does the secondary and final tillage in one step, but at 1 MPH versus running a field cultivator or disc and a drag at 5 MPH or so on average.