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Southeast Minnesota | I have heard of pulling a wire attached to the plow. Where was this wire attached and how did it accomplish its task? By the way, what was the exact purpose of pulling a wire? |
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I think you are referring to an old trip style plow. If you pulled the rope/wire from up on the tractor it would trip the lever to lower/raise the plow. Not sure if that's what you are thinking of or not but it's all I can think of... |
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Southeast Minnesota | No, they would have a wire attached to the moldboard and it would drag in the furrow. |
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central Illinois | Pulling a wire was used to cover tall vegetation. Would tie it to cutters. worked good but did not last long. |
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s nd | .
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Southeast Minnesota | So looking at your picture, the wires help tuck the grasses over so they flop all the way over with the soil. Then you won't have any stragglers sticking up on the furrow edges?
Was this used on corn stalks? |
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southern MN | Old coulters had a wishbone frame, not just on the back side. Tie the wire to the coulter bracket down low. Leave the wire long, longer is better. Needs to be long. Good stiff wire.
The wire needs to flow over and into the bottom of the furrow in front of it, long wire will burry itself and hold down in the bottom of the previous furrow. Too short a wire and it won't stay down in the furrow.
It folds over tall cover crops, like alfalfa and sweet clover. Burrows all the green manure. Typically this was done in late spring, and you wanted everything buried, so you could work it down in a few days and have a black field to get planted into, not so much herbicides and didnt have time to let things die off that were sticking out of the ground. You wanted the green stuff folded down.
So the wire would fold the green stuff over and down flat, so it would roll over and be buried. Otherwise you'd have a green slice that tipped up and stick out of the ground. Cover boards sorta do the same thing, but not as well for this purpose, the wire worked well.
It didnt help for cornstalks or heavy dry trash, only for standing green crop.
Plowing clockwise and it worked all day. Plowing counter clockwise and you would end up dropping the plow on the wires and cutting them off too short with the bottom behind....
Paul |
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southern MN | We liked the wire tied right on the coulter right by the coulter axle, low and back helped more.
Modern coulters don't have the right side Y frame so have to do it like that picture, works too.
Paul |
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Chebanse, IL..... | We used #9 wire (heavy) for corn stalks "here" also. You're probably right, it worked better for alfalfa & the likes, but it worked somewhat for stalks. We kept the whole roll of wire right up on the plow frame of each plow & replaced broken wires as necessary. It took a good pair of pliers to cut #9 wire. We attached the wires above the coulter itself, but still on the coulter shank. It was somewhat replaced in later years by a commercial product called a "Buster Bar", which I believe was made by Midwest Harrow. It was a large diameter, heavy gauge tube harrow tube that ran from front to rear being carried just past the moldboards on a flex hinge mechanism. We & others in our area also used home made type coverings. You'd bolt a 2x12 to chains & let it dangle over the moldboards & it would help bury trash by forcing the trash down & putting fresh dirt on top of it. Problem became the lack of longevity of the board. It would split & crack after being terribly beat up. Commercial "cover boards" had their own problems. They didn't scour often as well as the plow bottoms & would lead to blockage, but they did become fairly popular for some plows. |
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Callao Missouri | You know the first man that figured that system out had to have gotten tied up in the brand new five barb wire fence with this plow. LOL |
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| Yep Midwest buster bars Kasco made something similar.
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southern MN | Saw those on plows when you got out of my neighborhood.
In the wet clayish soils 'here', those bars must not have worked because I never saw one local. We make clay blocks most falls, and let winter mellow them out.
Some version of heavy chisel plow/ ripper has taken over most fall tillage now, leaves the same heavy stable chunks that don't blow or wash much, mellow out nice over winter.
Paul |
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| Had the Kasco ones here. Did some spring plowing of sod or alfalfa many years ago. Sometimes did not get all the fall plowing done on time either and this was before a chisel plow and larger tractor. On spring plowing they helped a little bit but you usually still ended up with marbles that you could never get broken down no matter how many times you worked it. Stuff would simply dry out before you could get it all plowed and worked down. Never used the rake in the fall, but am quite familiar with heavy black waxy soil and the heavy red clays.
After plowing in lands the ends would be so hard you could barely get the plow in the ground and turn the stuff over. Big long slabs 2-3 ft long. After a good winter and freeze/thaw cycles though it would be the most mellow and nicest soil you ever saw. |
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Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Pretty much the same here. I remember seeing them on the old pull-type plow Dad used 50-60 years ago. I was always amazed at how shiny the #9 wire got. In more modern times we didn't use the wire. |
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Chebanse, IL..... | Spring plowing was usually suicide here. A truly last-ditch effort. Spring plowing would usually turn dirt to concrete blocks. It made you truly sorry you did it. |
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nw MN | https://books.google.com/books?id=h9759QYHa6kC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=mol...
Page 13 of this old book has a pic of what you are looking for. They refer to them as covering wires, looks like a loop running right in front of the bottoms to guide trash under the soil being turned. |
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southern MN | Dad did it a lot here in the old days, spring plowing. His way of controlling Canadian thistle...... (It wasn't so successful....)
We were in a period of lots of spring rains, so it worked for him as the frequent rains would mellow out the lumps some but ya know, he wasn't on a plant early, high yield program!
I have 38 acres I winter the cattle on, have done many different things to work that up in spring over the years, often disking with the very small light 3pt single disk and going through with the field cultivator a week later ends up the best spring option. With manure, cattle hoof traffic, and some round bale feeding no tilling in an area that doesn't notill to start with is not an option, but the heavy spring tillage only works on special years. Often good to chisel up the hay feeding area and do the lighter tillage on the bulk of the acres. Have to be careful to not work the feeding areas too early, the frost stays under the old hay a lot longer.
Paul |
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s nd | If you are looking for something to just do a better job of covering, my neighbor had plastic wings mounted at the top of the bottom that would flip the crop for better covering. Help, I'll never reacall the name. Just a curved wing that made more of an arc to turn the crop under. Quick google no find. |
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nw MN | A coverboard, or a trashboard maybe? |
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Eastern North Carolina | ndred - 3/23/2015 10:07
If you are looking for something to just do a better job of covering, my neighbor had plastic wings mounted at the top of the bottom that would flip the crop for better covering. Help, I'll never reacall the name. Just a curved wing that made more of an arc to turn the crop under.
Pictures of plows with trash plates/cover boards, depends on what part of the country you're from!!
http://dealerportal.artsway-mfg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Plow...
Edited by retento 3/23/2015 10:42
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s nd | They really buried the trash for my neighbor. OP mentioned about using the wires on corn stalks so thought maybe he wasn't necessarily plowing tall grass. |
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| There were also plow jointers used to peel part of the furrow slice off when plowing sod and put that in the bottom of the furrow. It was supposed to prevent stuff from greening back up so quickly in the area between the furrows.
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ncia | I wonder if you could find some of those pieces f wire back with a rotary hoe?? that would be reall handy. |
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Southeast Minnesota | Oh no. The only moldboard plowing I have done is the garden. I just wanted to know how things were done in times past. We have pictures of plowing across the mile. Now every farm is on the contour. |
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s nd | It could be a pain with six bottoms, but was always impressed with how it "tripped" the tall grass or weeds and folded them into the bottom of the furrow. Long as the wire would get "caught" by the dirt form the bottom it would pull tight and flip the grass over. See if this old post comes up for me.
http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=262287&Display... |
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A moldboard plowing question - pulling a wire
