plow comparison(s)?

[near horse]

I’m a big fan of old farming equipment but finding decent HD stuff out here in the west that is: repairable or functional AND at a reasonable price (under 1000) and distance (less than 500 miles) is incredibly challenging. Sooo, I am wondering how folks feel about different brands of old sulky plows and how they compare to Pioneer’s sulky. Also, does anyone have experience with that kverneland bottom they sell? Does it really perform that well in sod?

Thanks.

[Plowboy]

We have a 14in Pioneer and it works well. I have used the white Horse and do like it a little better but not enough to go out and buy one when the Pioneer is paid for. The White Horse seemed to pull a little easier somehow although they are basically the same in design. The KV bottom is designed for sod with a long slow twist and works well in heavy soil but is pretty spendy. In our soil we don’t need it so we didn’t buy one. We have gravely loam and river bottom so even our sod rolls good. The older sulkies Oliver and Syracuse/John Deere were ok. The Mc Cormick was said to pull harder. But that was on the two ways which I don’t think plow incredibley well anyway. the older John Deere, Oliver and P&O/ International worked much like the new Pioneer and White Horse models just are harder to find parts for. John Deere is probably the easiest of the older plows to get parts for.

[OldKat]

@Plowboy 12902 wrote:

We have a 14in Pioneer and it works well. I have used the white Horse and do like it a little better but not enough to go out and buy one when the Pioneer is paid for. The White Horse seemed to pull a little easier somehow although they are basically the same in design. The KV bottom is designed for sod with a long slow twist and works well in heavy soil but is pretty spendy. In our soil we don’t need it so we didn’t buy one. We have gravely loam and river bottom so even our sod rolls good. The older sulkies Oliver and Syracuse/John Deere were ok. The Mc Cormick was said to pull harder. But that was on the two ways which I don’t think plow incredibley well anyway. the older John Deere, Oliver and P&O/ International worked much like the new Pioneer and White Horse models just are harder to find parts for. John Deere is probably the easiest of the older plows to get parts for.

Most of the land that I have access to is what we call “gumbo”, a sticky (when wet) and very plastic, dark clay. In the days when all plowing was done with animals much of those soils went unplowed, because it took so much power to plow out these heavy soils that it just was not practical. If I worked to modify the soil I just wonder if this type of plow would work in my situation? Also, how spendy is spendy?

[Plowboy]

The bottom itself is like $7-800 range but I think in your soil it takes alot more power to pull it. I think I saw a Picture of Dave Feltenberger using one in South Branfels Texas pulling it with 5 head where we use 3 here on a 14in.

[near horse]

I thought that the Pioneer literature said the Kverneland pulled 10-15% easier than the others of equal size. Was that just in sod because I’ve got similar soil to OldKat – sticky when wet – concrete when dry?

Also, most of the riding plows I run into are 2-way plows. I’ve heard they were good for hillside work but many folks just don’t like them at all. Any thoughts about the 2-ways?

[Plowboy]

The old 2ways work ok if they are in good shape but not my favorite. They are cumbersome to mount and dismount and can bang you up if you get jarred from the seat in rocky soil. Also if your team was ever to get spooked your better off riding it out because you could get hurt worse bailing out. With a good team, decent soil and a 2way in good shape you could get some work done.
As for the KV bottom pulling easier that may be true but apparently not easy enough in that soil type. If all else fails add more power. I’ve found it easier to use more horses and go all day than work a couple into the ground in a couple hours.

[Gabe Ayers]

I think that KV pulled easier in the demo’s at SDAD. There is definitely a difference in the power required to pull plows through certain soil types. The KV really turned under some tall grass sod and that is what a moldboard plow is best for, tearing up sod and being the first step to putting it in open tillage or replanting to better sod in the front end of a rotation. There were White Horse plows there with both bottoms. We have a pioneer here with the 12 inch Oliver/JD type plow and it is exactly the same as the tractor types or they are the tractor types.

I started with an old JD 2 way plow as the first sulky I every used. We picked it off the top of a scrap heap at an old farm about to be auctioned. Bought it for scrap value, $15.00. It had Syracuse bottoms and was pretty smooth once adjusted properly and very light weight. The biggest benefit is that you can turn all the land up hill and slow the drifting downhill a bit. It avoids having a dead furrow or headland to turn it all one way. One doesn’t have to hit to many tight rocks before the concerns Plowboy Dennis mentions. The issue is getting around those adjustment handles when exiting the seat rapidly as the plow comes out of the ground suddenly. I haven’t seen any sulkies that won’t launch a fellow up beside the team real quick if they hang a tight rock, especially when the team wants to pull harder when the load gets heavier. The best thing about all the modern one is that they have steel components that can be repaired or replaced unlike the old cast iron pieces that are getting harder to find anywhere.

I do think there is something to the concept of the “Plowmans Folley” book that suggest inversion of the land is not the best way to till the soil. It creates what is called moldboard shear where if you drive a soil probe straight into the soil there will be several inches of loose soil then a couple of inches for very compacted soil and some more loose below the shear line. So that is why we limit the use of the mold board plow to breaking sod, especially tight tough sod like the bane of the Southeast – FESCUE…
The alternative is a chisel type plow type, some call it a Vibra-Shank which the Amish manufacturer’s also make. It is closer to the plow bivol keeps posting in it’s method of breaking up the soil. It is called an ecological tillage tool, but it takes a lot more passes to break up old sod that with a moldboard plow.

So we just use the moldboard on sod and a disc and spring tooth on stubble ground and then a sub-soiler once before going back into sod as a part of a seven year crop rotation approach that is just good old sound farming practices. There are lots of other benefits to crop rotation, when using animal powered tillage, but one, is not turning the land over every year.
My point is that the soil can be prepared to a seed bed without turning when worked with animals versus running over and over it with tractor tires. It simply stays less compacted when using animal powered tillage in our experience.

I guess a fellow could set up some strip contours and plow all winter if the ground wasn’t frozen hard. The old timers seemed to always have some ground in tillage all year around. Being diversified is harder…then again, one will always have a place to work those young horses that need some sweat and time on a steady moderately heavy load.

Does anyone on the board have a horse drawn sub soiler?

[near horse]

I do agree that overuse of the moldboard plow can result in a plowpan layer developing. Jason, you don’t use horses with your chisel plow or subsoiler do you? Those buggers really call for some HP. Also, I do recall that another alternative to using the moldboard was using a disc plow – doesn’t completely invert the soil and, theoretically, no plow pan. I’ve looked about for a disc plow but had little luck and I’m not sure how they pull – likely need more HP as well.

Who makes the vibra-shank in horse size? White horse or I & J maybe?

[Gabe Ayers]

I think White Horse makes several models of chisel plows and subsoilers. They have the hydraulic reset feature. They put three on a single point usually.

It has been a long time since we subsoiled with the horses. We had an older model of a three point hitch cart that raised with a bottle jack and lowered by gravity only. It was made by a retired professor in Kentucky named Elmo Reed. His rig was the forerunner to the teamster 2000 that was the first ground drive PTO cart I remember. It was the first cat. one three point hitch cart made for animal power. He eventually made a model that had a ground drive pto like I and J and a hydraulic accumlator from the other tire. It was a tricycle arrangement and would turn over real easy when it was loaded heavy. We thought at the time we got it that we could use it in the woods too and take advantage of the jack to provide lift on the logs. The thing was way to cumbersome and the little third wheel up front would jar you pretty good and seemed to find every stump/rock/hole in the center of the skid trail. It was way hard to turn around or back up in the woods. It is still sitting in the briar patch up on the hill in case someone wants it…cheap….

Back on the sub-soiling. We started trying to use one shank of a chisel plow that we took off our tractor plow and made a three point hitch carrier for it.
We couldn’t get the angle right or enough down pressure to get it to stay in the ground. So we went with the simple sub-soiler three point hitch model and it would go into the ground about 12/14 inches deep. We were working some stout horses trying to get them ready for some pulling contest so instead of lugging them around a field on a sled we used the sub-soiler. It has no breakaway feature so every time we hit a tight rock they would shear the bolt and I would have to stop, dig up the tip and put it back together. It really worked a pair of horses hard. That was the point at the time, but if one was looking to really get more work done a three abreast would walk along with it much easier.

We are actually rethinking the farming or grow food for sale in our operations.
It may be appropriate to diversify our production to be about more than wood. The shut down in the spring inspired us that way. Now the challenge is to find a crop we can grow without the dam deer from eating it… In the early spring they will actually dig up potatoes and eat the sprouts that are green about ground too. We have traditionally grown great cabbage at the high altitude, but we are afraid the deer with wipe us out there too. Our current successful gardens are usually somewhere between the barn and house and my fat old dog barks enough to keep away, plus the web of electric fences is a sure deterrent.

Since we always have some old sod that could be replanted into better forage, but when we turn it we would like to put a year of row crops in to make something out of the tillage work and get a years cash crop off it before going back to small grains and a new crop of grasses and legumes.
We are fortunate to have very fertile soil that will grow just about anything we can get by the deer….

You may call and get a catalog from White Horse at: 717-768-8313.

You may visit I & J at: http://www.farmingwithhorses.com

[OldKat]

From Jason’s post above:
My point is that the soil can be prepared to a seed bed without turning when worked with animals versus running over and over it with tractor tires. It simply stays less compacted when using animal powered tillage in our experience.

An Amish guy that I know farms some land that he owns and leases the rest out to a guy that farms with tractors. As he expands his operation he just cuts back on the land that he leases out. He told me that when he starts farming land that has been farmed with tractors it takes about four or five years to loosen up the soil. He said the first year that he farms it he can hardly get the soil turned it is so hard and tight.

I am sure other factors are at play here, too, such as the fact that he adds organic matter such as manure, compost, etc, etc. every time he can. Still it is a pretty strong statement in agreement with what Jason has observed.

[blue80]

I found this to be of great interest. http://www.history.rochester.edu/appleton/a/ploughs.html

Out here in flood irrigated country, all the conventional row croppers insist that the moldboard plow is the only way to go here; “no till” just won’t work. Asking a dozen guys, the best reason I think I’ve been given is that the weed seeds last a very long time here because of lack of natural rainfall and therefore must be buried down deep to keep them from competing. But I am wondering that the following year, when the soil is inverted again, the weed seeds are brought back up again to germinate at will? I think that is what happens, as they spray the corn, barley, beets, alfalfa just as much as the “notillers” do out east.

I am hoping that germinating the weed seeds and then tilling and planting appropriately will be the best method. In a few years after microbial growth commences and our weedbed diminishes, hopefully we’d do less continuos inverted ploughing and more strip tilling where the given crop will be, allowing a rotation and rest program as well. And an excuse to have a few different plows to play ahem “work” with of course….

Then what to grow and how to grow it…and then market.

Kevin

[blue80]

Mr. Rutledge:

In regards to deer as pests, we’ve been using http://www.electrobraid.com for years and love it. One of those rare products that pays for itself and is a pleasure to invest in. Basically its an upgraded electric fence made of parachute harness type material with copper as a conductor. High tensile so post spacing can be 50 ft apart on level ground. Their service and shipping has been impeccable and on time, even across the border.

We’ve had no injuries to any of our horses including colts, studs, and mares that were bonded then separated. And no “escapes” for my wife to deal with when I am out of town either….

They have some interesting case studies keeping deer and moose out of highways, polo grounds, airports, and cabbage fields in Canada. Wildlife link at the bottom of their home page. Hope this helps.
ps. I’m not employed by electrobraid. yet….

Kevin

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