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SW Ontario | In our quest to cut down on the amount of plowing we do, we rented an offset disc from a guy who was advertising one in a local paper. Our chisel plow plugs with cornstalks and once the ground is a little wetter, it just cuts grooves instead of breaking all the soil loose. The disc was an 11' bush hog, originally 17' but they had removed the wings. He claimed to pull it with 90 hp 2wd at 5.5" deep which seemed a little optimistic, but what do I know? This disc is built like a tank, but it looked like it had been pulled by one too, welded and gusseted all over the place! We put it behind 125hp 2wd as our 4wd tractor was on the plow. The ground was somewhat wet, but it's been a good fall here for getting stuff done, we've plowed in much wetter conditions.
In combined corn stalks, the trash seemed to ball up between the discs occasionally before finally coming free, leaving a small heap behind. I was also spinning a lot and didn't have enough traction to pull it at 5.5" deep. The tractor showed 4mph, but I was likely averaging about 3. Overall not what we hoped for.
We also tried a round in a hay field that's to be plowed, it worked not too bad, but I couldn't go very deep at all for a lack of traction.
The last test was in a field that was oats with red clover underseeded. The clover was pretty thin due to a lack of moisture so after the straw was baled, a mix of oats and barley from our feed bin was broadcast spread which grew really well. This had been previously sprayed out for a small no-till experiment next year. I did one round with disc and it worked pretty well, I didn't have enough traction to go the full 5.5" deep, but close to it.
In all cases, the tractor was pulling sideways a bit, would adjusting the hitch left or right on the disc have helped?
Fore to aft leveling on this disc is non-existent as there is over a foot of vertical play in the hitch due to sloppy pins.
Obviously traction was an issue, but I don't see how the owner could pull it with 90 hp 2wd, unless he's on much lighter ground.
Was it just too wet? Like I said, this fall has been pretty good, we have plowed in much wetter conditions.
What's needed to make such a disc work better, especially in cornstalks? | |
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Our offset disc experience
