cultivator neck yoke

[Kyle]

Hello,
I am restoring a McCormick New 4 cultivator to working condition. (I need to work faster, the weeds are growing from all this rain!) I am trying to decide what the best neckyoke width to use is. Since the singletrees position are relevant to the cultivator gangs position do you use a different width neck yoke when the cultivators are all the way narrow as when they are all the way wide? My rows are planted 4′ on center. If I remember correctly the wheel base of my cultivator is adjusted to 42″ I am using haflingers in D ring harness. thanks

[mitchmaine]

far as i know, kyle, you always hook your horses square to your load and parallel with each other. meaning matching your yoke and evener. some stuff has alot of sidedraft, like a mower, or a plow in the wrong slot, and a log on a twitchchain is all over the place, but you try and give the horses the best chance they can to help you. and cultivating is fussy work anyway. row width doesn’t affect a single row cultivator unless the row is way less than the wheel width of the cultivator. what looks like huge spacing now looks different in august. if you change the draft width (gang width) on the cultivator then you should adjust the neck yoke to suit. thats the way i see it. others may disagree. mitch

[Marshall]

On mine the evener does not move just the gangs. The evener bar is attatched to the bottom of the tongue. Measure the evener and that is what you need for a neck yoke.

[Kyle]

my evener is attached to the bottom of the tongue also. There are vertical pieces that are attached to this evener and to the gangs. The singletrees hang from these vertical pieces. I have not made the piece that attaches the gangs to the vertical pieces so i dont know how much it will actually cause the singletrees to move yet, but it seems like they are designed to slide on the evener with the adjustment of the gangs. I know it is best to hitch the horses square. I was just curious as to what most folks do for the cultivator neckyoke. thanks

[Rick Thomas]

We cultivate a lot, I think the information regarding neck yoke width is good advice, I would recommend putting spreaders on your team so they can have some freedom to move about the rows somewhat independent of one another–this has helped greatly especially if your rows are uneven.

[Kyle]

thanks Rick,
you taught me to work with horses in the first place a few years ago. I’ve watched a few sterling videos since and saw you have gotten a lot of new equipment. Congratulations! i sure miss the NEK and being able to take the wagon out in almost any direction and end up on a peaceful trip. Now I’m in NJ managing an 80 acre farm. On a busy road. So I’m limited to doing loops aroubd the fields. We do 6 acres of veggies, have large black hogs, belted galloway cows, lots of feeder lambs on the way, and some chickens and ducks, etc. And of course our 2 haflingers. Our equipment is limited, but I am aquiring it little by little. You planted the seed of a concept that has grown more voraciously than kudzu, japanese knotweed, and galanzoga combined in me. I’ll never be able to give up farming with horses! so thanks again! I know how busy your schedule is, but if you end up with 15 minutes I’d love to catch up on the phone. Kyle Laferriere 802-323-seven893 or 908-850-055five.

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