HD Subsoiler

[Kevin Cunningham]

I was trained on a tractor powered vegetable farm and subsoiling was a part of our rotation. We also grow most of the crops dryland, with out irrigation. Using the ripper in the fall on tilled and slightly compacted soil has an amazing effect on water penetration and retention. It is also a wild ride on a tractor because if you hit something you can “pop a wheely” with the tractor or worse flip it over backwards. It is awesome to sink the shank to 2 feet and watch the ground fracture underneath the wheels of the tractor. Think about the movie Tremors, how the ground cracks and rolls, to a lesser extent, but definatelty seeing the effect beyond the wheels of the tractor. I think the practice is great when you use a tractor inevitably cause some compaction, but I have a hard time seeing draft animals pull that. I am sure they can do it to lesser extant but I think that preventing compaction and using deep rooted plants in rotation will have a much better result in the long term.

[mitchmaine]

hi adrienne, good to hear you. a reminder that you still own two parts plows on donnies rock wall. kens plan was to make one good plow out of them, but there might be enough left over (wheels, frame, levers and one beam) to try what donn was getting at. attatch or fabricate a shank to the beam, and lower the frame with both wheels. you might get enough depth to scratch the pan without over working the horses. seems like a three horse job, but you could throw in more horses if needed. alfalfa has a tough time in maine making it through the winter. best wishes, and hey to ken. your friend, mitch

[Tim Harrigan]

We have had additional discussions about subsoiling, see the link below. Pulling even one subsoiler shank at 12-14 inches is going to a challenge for even a team of three, but it will vary considerably based on the soil texture, soil moisture, shank design, etc. If it does not pull hard, then I would wonder why you are doing it. There are a lot of reasons why water does not infiltrate well, and machinery compaction from many years of corn silage production could be one of them. If that is the case, I would encourage you to custom hire the work done with tractor power. I would also encourage you to have strips of tilled and untilled land, at least for a year or two. Then you can better assess the results of the deep tillage operation.

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?2740-Keyline-Plow&highlight=subsoil

This is something that Carl wrote in one of the post from this link. I think it is very perceptive and profound:

I realize that there are those who just want to use animal power as a replacement for petroleum based machinery. For some the use of animal power leads to a sensitivity to the permanent ecosystem that leads to a development of craft. In this instance farming is more than methods of harvest, and enhancing production, it also has its roots in walking the line where human interests meets ecological parameters.

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 34094 wrote:

We have had additional discussions about subsoiling, see the link below.

Yes, there is a very enlightening and thorough discussion in that thread. It answered all my questions.

[dominiquer60]

It answered some of my questions and spawned new ones, but I will start another thread.

[newbeatfarm]

Wow! Thanks for all the ideas and information. Still pondering myself if this job will be best done with our horses or if we should hire it out to a local farmer with a tractor. Ultimately a tractor with a couple of deep subsoiler shanks might be the only thing to help get deep in the ground in these fields that have been so long compacted by larger tractor machinery. It would be a one time job and then we would rely on cover cropping with crops like mammoth red clover, forage radish etc. which have deep tap roots for further work in the soil but like Erika said:
“If one is dealing with soil that has been compacted for years due to growing conventional corn, sub-soiling can be a quick way to fracture the hardpan”
We don’t have years to break up this hard pan by covercropping alone, using a subsoiler really makes the most sense for our system. I do think it will be worth building a single shank sub soiler/yoemans plow to use to rejuvinate pastures and help manage water flow in certain areas on the farm which also have a long history of being hayed with heavy machinery.
Thanks for all the useful advise and insite everyone. -Adrienne

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