Which disc Harrow to get

[corey9212]

I am getting a 3 point disc harrow for my tractor BX2660 and have a choice between two discs, both are made by the same company.

First one is $899.99 and is 48" with 16 - 16" discs (8 knotched on the front and 8 smooth on the rear), it weighs 290lbs and has an angle iron frame.

Second one is $1099.99 and is 60" with 16 - 18" discs (8 knotched on the front and 8 smooth on the rear), it weighs 395lbs and has a tubular frame.

Which one would my tractor handle? I am leaning at the second one cause of the more weight and little bit bigger size but not sure how it will do with the tractor. The soil is mostly clay with some black dirt and sand mixed (outdoor riding arena)

Thanks.
Corey

 

[EddieWalker]

How often will you use it?

I wanted a real nice, boxed tube disk when I started looking around to do my food plots. The prices kept me looking until I found a deal for one on craigslist. I've never owned one before, or used one before, so I thought it wasn't what I wanted when I first saw the ad. The price was $300 for a used 5ft disk, no brand name anywhere on it, and angle iron frame.

I use it twice a year and love it. Bigger and heavier would have been better, but not needed for the half acre food plat that I disk up. After the first time that I disked it up, it's been easier every time since then.

Something to remember when disking soil for the first time is that the ground has a crust to it and getting through that can be very hard. I just keep going and going until it happens. Then it just grinds up the soil into a very fine powder.

If you are doing a really big area, a sub soiler might be a good thing to have too.

Since it's just a little bit more, I would go for the better one!!!!! You wont notice the difference power wise, but the bigger, heavier one will get the job done faster and easier.

Eddie

 

[jlsmith]

I would go with the 60". Your tractor should handle it fine depending on your soil.

 

[Bartcephus]

I also found a used five footer on Craigslist within an hours drive of me. Angle iron frame, 16 discs, 8 slotted on the front 8 solids on the rear gangs. Use it for food plots and small gardens, works great. Especially if I run the middle buster first to break the crust of the soil like Eddie mentioned. Of course I would have loved one of the tubular frame ones that are heavier and easier to adjust the angle of the gangs, but I couldn't beat the $250 price tag. It was damaged a little when I bought it, but some work with the press and I straigtened it out.

If you have the resources, get the bigger one. (Can't go wrong with the heavier unit.) And as Eddie said, the more you go over an area, the easier it gets.

Regards,

Bart

 

[corey9212]

How often will you use it?

I wanted a real nice, boxed tube disk when I started looking around to do my food plots. The prices kept me looking until I found a deal for one on craigslist. I've never owned one before, or used one before, so I thought it wasn't what I wanted when I first saw the ad. The price was $300 for a used 5ft disk, no brand name anywhere on it, and angle iron frame.

I use it twice a year and love it. Bigger and heavier would have been better, but not needed for the half acre food plat that I disk up. After the first time that I disked it up, it's been easier every time since then.

Something to remember when disking soil for the first time is that the ground has a crust to it and getting through that can be very hard. I just keep going and going until it happens. Then it just grinds up the soil into a very fine powder.

If you are doing a really big area, a sub soiler might be a good thing to have too.

Since it's just a little bit more, I would go for the better one!!!!! You wont notice the difference power wise, but the bigger, heavier one will get the job done faster and easier.

Eddie

The arena gets disked once a week and after it dries after every rainfall, so lots of use. The ground crusts up very hard and I need to maintain it so it's soft 4-6" deep. I have to first disc it so it's soft and fine then I use a drag harrow before each ride to smooth it out. (I tried a rotortiller but rocks kept jamming in it and even stalling the tractor needing a crowbar and lots of oomph and grunting to get it out.)

I would go with the 60". Your tractor should handle it fine depending on your soil.

The soil is mostly clay but also has a mix of sand and black dirt, when it dries it's like cement and when wet its nice place to get muddy and atv's stuck, lol. The tractor handling it fine is my concern. To me it feels like its over powered (the loader can't even pick up any of my attachments for maintenance.)

I also found a used five footer on Craigslist within an hours drive of me. Angle iron frame, 16 discs, 8 slotted on the front 8 solids on the rear gangs. Use it for food plots and small gardens, works great. Especially if I run the middle buster first to break the crust of the soil like Eddie mentioned. Of course I would have loved one of the tubular frame ones that are heavier and easier to adjust the angle of the gangs, but I couldn't beat the $250 price tag. It was damaged a little when I bought it, but some work with the press and I straigtened it out.

If you have the resources, get the bigger one. (Can't go wrong with the heavier unit.) And as Eddie said, the more you go over an area, the easier it gets.

Regards,

Bart

Is the middle buster the attachment that has one single scoop or tine on it that rips the ground up? If so I have considered it but with how much riding that gets done the maintenance needs to be quick cause sometimes I only have an hour before the next horse is ready to go out into the arena (sometimes I feel like a zamboni, lol)

 

[Bartcephus]

Hmmm, if it gets disced that often, hard for me to imagine you would need the middle buster, but with rocks that clog a tiller? I'd hate to fall off the bull and hit one of those. For your tiller, get a slip clutch and keep it properly tensioned and not bound up. Should help keeping the rocks from jamming in there. A tiller does a much better job without having to disc then drag.

I have a garden spot where a house used to be. House burned down, someone buried all the trash there and l have had to hand pick the rocks, bricks, hunks of concrete, rotten, rusty box springs, metal fence posts, hunks of pipe etc. Now I only hit that stuff if I till too deep. Get some of your rodeo volunteers out there to follow and get the rocks out. They should appreciate the softer landings. :thumbsup:

 

[corey9212]

Hmmm, if it gets disced that often, hard for me to imagine you would need the middle buster, but with rocks that clog a tiller? I'd hate to fall off the bull and hit one of those. For your tiller, get a slip clutch and keep it properly tensioned and not bound up. Should help keeping the rocks from jamming in there. A tiller does a much better job without having to disc then drag.

I have a garden spot where a house used to be. House burned down, someone buried all the trash there and l have had to hand pick the rocks, bricks, hunks of concrete, rotten, rusty box springs, metal fence posts, hunks of pipe etc. Now I only hit that stuff if I till too deep. Get some of your rodeo volunteers out there to follow and get the rocks out. They should appreciate the softer landings. :thumbsup:

Actually doing a bit of research on the property and I found out there was an old house there that had mostly brick and cement and they decided to bury it all there not realizing with all the hooves trampling around on there would work it all up to the surface and lie just under the crust. Do you know anywhere (in Alberta preferred) that sells rotortillers with the slip clutch for my tractor? Cause I have been looking everywhere for one and so far I have seen them for 50HP+. My tiller was a land pride and it had no shear bolts and no slip clutch, it was direct drive and whatever it hit directly affected the tractor.

 

[Bartcephus]

I am not aware of any Alberta suppliers, but you can buy a slip clutch separately and add it to the land pride tiller. You may need to shorten the PTO shaft a bit, but it should mount to to the input shaft of the tiller and then the PTO shaft goes between it and the tractor. Tractor Supply sells them here stateside and you can order them online. Just make certain to mach the spline pattern of your PTO shaft and you should be good to go. Certainly a good way to protect your tractor from PTO binds. (As long as it is properly adjusted.

Regards,
Bart

 

[dkizerian]

Something to try that might cut a little time off your maintenance ...

Can you hook the drag harrow up behind the disc? I've seen landscapers and one arena use a disc with a section of chain link fence dragging behind it just to even out/smooth the results of the discing.

 

[corey9212]

I am not aware of any Alberta suppliers, but you can buy a slip clutch separately and add it to the land pride tiller. You may need to shorten the PTO shaft a bit, but it should mount to to the input shaft of the tiller and then the PTO shaft goes between it and the tractor. Tractor Supply sells them here stateside and you can order them online. Just make certain to mach the spline pattern of your PTO shaft and you should be good to go. Certainly a good way to protect your tractor from PTO binds. (As long as it is properly adjusted.

Regards,
Bart

I will look into that, if that's all it takes is to just put it after the PTO shaft and the gearbox it would make a good investment for any of my PTO attachments.

Something to try that might cut a little time off your maintenance ...

Can you hook the drag harrow up behind the disc? I've seen landscapers and one arena use a disc with a section of chain link fence dragging behind it just to even out/smooth the results of the discing.

I have thought about that, there is nowhere to hook up the drag harrow behind the disk but also wouldn't be hard to weld on a hook for the harrow. The only issue I would see is turning with the disc in the ground is next to impossible so it might make it hard to come to the end, loft the disc, turn, back up to the fence, then drop the disc and go cause the disc would drop onto the harrow.

 

[corey9212]

So just an update I went and ordered that 60" disc and it is on its way. I also picked up a 72" grading scraper, it's nothing fancy just a bare basic model, would it handle good with my driveway of mostly clay and gravel?

 

[Baby Grand]

I think it was was Farmwithjunk that mentioned that disking a piece of soil repeatedly is a fast way to develop a plow pan. You may benefit from the use of a subsoiler before you disc or till again. You can attach & remove a subsoiler very quickly, so I bet you could work it into the routine - maybe after the last horse has run before you close up?