field work with oxen in permanent bed system on slanting land

[daniel grover]

Here’s a doozy for you– friends who’s farm i’m working on are interested in having oxen in the future. We’ve been talking out the possibility of a conversion to draft power and have come up against a lot of questions/problems.

They currently grow vegetables in a tractor/tiller based system. Some of their crop fields are on sloping ground with permanent beds (and permanent grass pathways) laid out on contour to avoid erosion. They use stabilizer bars on their tractor to keep their implements (chisel plow and tiller) from listing downhill and into their grass pathways. So, the question is, how could their system be adapted for oxen? How could they use oxen and disc, harrow, etc. to fit these beds while preserving the permanent grass paths? Further, is it possible to cultivate effectively with oxen on a hill farm? What kind of cultivation equipment is suitable for oxen?

[bendube]

That IS a doozy.
How steep is sloping? How wide are the path’s/beds

Some issues to think about:
1.) If you are keeping animals on the farm, the steepest open land should be pasture. So that may remove some of the issue.
2.) Usually to me, permanent beds means controlled traffic (don’t walk or drive on the beds). Depending on the width of the beds and paths, then it could be really difficult to have oxen pull equipment over beds without they themselves walking in the beds. There would be ways, but I wouldn’t recommend them.

3.) If the areas that the animals work are very clearly delineated, (i.e. grass vs bare dirt) the animals should, over time become easier to drive as they know where they need to be.
4.) I don’t think cultivating would be super difficult (unless its very steep), since you’d probably want to do it with 2 people anyway. You’d want a riding cultivator and/or a walkbehind cultivator. If you like to tinker, antiques of both can be found lying around for cheap, and a couple manufacturers make new ones.

Good luck.

[bendube]

Oh, and one more thing: if you’re serious about oxen on sloping ground, maybe you should become the first person in the US to breed Dzho- yak-cattle hybrids for work. Supposedly the mules of the Himalayas.

I’m not sure that I’m serious about that.

[Kevin Cunningham]

I’ve been thinking about this one as well. I am thinking that some of the smaller Promata or Annies-all-in-one type equipment that can be pulled off center behind a single animal might be appropriate in these situations. The ox walks the path and the tool works off to the side in the permanent bed. Just an idea not being able to see the situations and really size it up. You might not be able to do the primary tillage at first but some secondary and cultivation work could be done this way. I would also tell them that training oxen has to be your passion to make it work. I think it is possible but they have to really want to work with the animals to make a go at it.

[bsmit24]

In permanent beds with designated foot paths, how much primary tillage will take place?

I have seen images from india and africa that show oxen in yokes much wider than those typically seen here so that the oxen straddle the row.

[daniel grover]

Can you say more about pulling these tools off-center. What’s the tongue/yoke setup for that? My inclination is that it would work better and be easier to have a wide-set yoke (as bsmit24 suggests) with an ox on either side of the bed, walking in the grass paths.

It also seems to me that a tongued implement would have less of a desire to slide downhill? Does this seem true? Would you end up with a problem of the tongue pushing against the side of the downhill ox?

I’m beginning to learn/read about head vs neck yokes and britchens for oxen. Is it necessary to use a head yoke to make this happen since it’s a sloping farm? As I mentioned, the beds are set up on contour so the team wouldn’t be working facing down hill.

Also, I’m still curious about whether the riding or walk behind cultivator would want to slide downhill while cultivating. The fields aren’t terribly slanted but enough so that stabilizer bars were necessary to keep tractor implements from sliding downhill. Any thoughts?

To answer the question about primary tillage, bsmit24, probably very little once the beds are established. Currently a rototiller is used on this farm to work in cover crops, or after plowing. I’m thinking that a switch to oxen would also be a switch away from the rototiller. In the case that primary tillage is necessary, I could be wrong about this but it seems to me that primary tillage in this system would actually be easier than secondary and especially cultivation where more precision is necessary.

[dominiquer60]

“Also, I’m still curious about whether the riding or walk behind cultivator would want to slide downhill while cultivating. The fields aren’t terribly slanted but enough so that stabilizer bars were necessary to keep tractor implements from sliding downhill. Any thoughts?”

Gravity, it is not just a good idea, its the law. All of my fields are reasonably sloped, but not too much that I can’t cultivate. I have not used a walk behind cultivator much, but I can safely say that gravity doesn’t stop working when I use the riding cultivator. Cultivating on even a slight hillside is not without challenge. Generally there is a lot of trying to use the foot pedals to steer uphill the entire time, implements and poles can easily drift downhill as the animals stay the course between rows. If the tractor needed stabilizers then that is a good sign that you will have to put effort into keeping your cultivator on track too.

[Jelmer]

Hey Daniel,

Reading your post makes me think of the agricultural landscape in the Andean mountains. There oxen are used for plowing, harrowing & hilling on slopes. These are slopes where a tractor doesn´t enter. Added are two pictures of Ecuador. One of a field being harrowed and plowed. The other shows a field that was just plowed by oxen.

People in South America asked me about using animal traction machinery like the European tool carrier there. My thought on that is if its really steep field, I would use a walk behind cultivator.
The farm in Ecuador, to whom I delivered and integrated a European tool carrier, has a slope of 15%. The same as the tractor, the Kockerling tool carrier works fine there on such a slope. They use one horse for the machine, in broccoli and leeks.
A team in front of such a tool carrier is possible too. With the permanent grass-paths bed system the animals could walk the paths

Cultivators with a ridge or crest on the wheels would have an advantage on a slope.
The steel wheels of for example the I&J riding cultivator have a ridge/crest. This gives the machine more stabilty from sideward pressure. Comparable to the wheels of a ground driven mower, but with a bigger crest.

Working off-set.
When working off-set, the further or/and deeper that goes, the bigger sideward pressure on the machine/draftanimal will be. The soil type also has and effect on this.
Such work would put uneven pressure on the draft animal. If that´s high and for hours, it might not be pleasant. I think its like pushing a wheelbarrow in front of you, but offset. A bit off-set and for a short while with a light load that´s ok. Changing sides would help too.

This sideward pressure depends also on the type of machine being used. Like a walk behind cultivator with a setup like the hitching piont on a walk behind plow (Like Kevin mentioned).
For a tool carrier it would be different when a single horse is put off-set. Interesting would be to solve the sideward pressure on the machine so the animal walks “free”.

Stabilizer bars.
What the stabilizer bars on the tractor concerns, using the tiller is heavy work. When these bars are not set, a machine seeks its “own path”. Especially a rotating tiller. Even on flat land, when seeding for example, I would set these bars tight enough so that the seeder follows the tractor directly. Without “wandering off”.

Would this side pressure be experienced with the draft animals too?
Not as much as with tiller behind the tractor. The (percentage of the) slope does influence this.
When working with an off-sett “walk behind cultivator” it could be forced to work uphill by the created side draft. Letting the animal walk next to the crop and setting the line of draft in such way, that it will follow the machine straight. In this way it will be compensating from following the land slope. When set very off-set, the rear part of the cultivator turn downwards.

It depends on the percentage of the slope and when needed on the off-set adjustment on the machinery. Too much off-set would make the rear of walk behind cultivator turn.

What you mention with a team and a neck yoke makes sense to me. That is seen a lot in the Andean oxen culture.

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