|
|
Hanford, CA | I live about 20 miles from where the annual Tulare Farm Show is hosted (supposed to be the largest in the world)...go every year...kinda see the same things, but this year...I found this. I have never seen a ripper like this....you guys?
 (Photo_021506_005.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
 Photo_021506_005.JPG (86KB - 1189 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Bartlett TX | There are several of these in our area. Cat dealer sells them, not that particular model, but 11 to 13 shank rippers going 24 inches deep. We actually have tow 15 shank laney rippers, similar, but half the price. |
|
| |
|
Western NY | What kind of horses do they pull them with? The shanks look larger than the Unverferth 12 shank zone builders around here where 24 inches would be a dream. JD9620 and CIH STX500 sometimes stop in this part of the woods.
Dany |
|
| |
|
Sunnyside, WA | When I lived in California I worked for a couple guys that ran 5 shank versions of the Wilcox rippers. Would pull with a Cat 75C, CIH 9350, or JD 9200, etc. Usually ran anywhere from 24-30" deep and it was a PULL for those tractors.
We use a 7 shank JD 915 behind our 8410 or 8420. I was pulling it 21" deep last week and that was also quite a workout. Picture of the Wilcox brought back memories of just how slow going that style of ripping was. Our JD ripper would be called a chisel plow in CA.
 (DSC04059.JPG)
 (DSC04058.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
DSC04059.JPG (61KB - 1191 downloads)
DSC04058.JPG (60KB - 1237 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Our little kitty cat MT 875 B should pull it, but man this seems like an overkill. We run an eliminator and our MT865B grunts and burns about 100 gallons/hr.
Here is your CA chisel plow...
and eliminator |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Our little kitty cat MT 875 B should pull it, but man this seems like an overkill. We run an eliminator and our MT865B grunts and burns about 100 gallons/hr.
Here is your CA chisel plow...
and eliminator |
|
| |
|
| Challenger tracked tractors and conventional bulldozers (common to California agriculture) are really the only tractors capable of operating effectively with Wilcox products. They are so large and robust for their conditions that they make most other brands of rippers and chisels look like farm toys. If I remember right, CAT was using Wilcox products to benchmark their new MT series of Challenger track tractors. If they can work with Wilcox, they can work with anything and do with so much more economy. www.wilcoxap.com |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Forgot Pics
 (Photo_021406_002.JPG)
 (Eliminator.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
Photo_021406_002.JPG (69KB - 1133 downloads)
Eliminator.JPG (48KB - 1242 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
| They are the next best thing to a boat anchor. Most of them are still pulled with D6+ bulldozers. |
|
| |
|
| is that fuel usage right? |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | We will probably average somewhere around 35 ga/hr at full load with the eliminator. Estimated drag with the eliminator is somewhere are 27,000 lbs. The ripper shown earlier is more than that...I think. |
|
| |
|
Malheur County Oregon | Took a road trip thru central california a few years and seen a cat of D8 or 9 size pulling a ripper with shanks that had to be 5 ft long with another cat the same size pushing the first one. Wish I had gotten a pic of it
We have a 2 shank we made that will go about 34 to 36 in deep that we use in front of our 2 bottom deep plow that will go 24-26 in. It takes the 8400 to pull each one The plow is an in furrow that we customized and it's not real fun running it. About one acre per hour and leaning side to side in the furrow. |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Brian in E Ore...what is your email address? I will dig and send you some pics. |
|
| |
|
Renville Minnesota | Wow! Since I don't know a Dang thing about your guy's soil type, gotta ask some ??? Do you run something like that every year? Does it pay? How is it driving (planting) following the ripper? Ive dealt with some interesting "soup" after ripping only 20" up here in the tundra.  Thanks for any info! |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | We rip just about every year and have heavy clay soils. We go 2 year cotton, then 1 year wheat. We rotate garlic every 5 years...part of the farm we rotate tomatoes, onions, or lettuce...depends on price (wheat is breakeven or we may even lose money). Our cotton yields over the past 10 years have been around 4 bales/ac. (had a 155 ac. block that went 5.1 bales/ac in '02) which will pay off. We usually deep-rip when the soil has not had any moisture for about 4 months. As far as roughness...we only run track equipment, so that definately helps, but if you look at the pic, you can see what follows the implement to break the clogs of dirt.
 (Clog Breaker.JPG)
 (Ring Roller Attachement.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
Clog Breaker.JPG (57KB - 1193 downloads)
Ring Roller Attachement.JPG (40KB - 1081 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Renville Minnesota | Thanks for the info. Interesting stuff. Good luck this year, sure would like to see cotton growing some day. |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Come visit!
 (Cotton 1.JPG)
 (Cotton Manager.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
Cotton 1.JPG (77KB - 1067 downloads)
Cotton Manager.JPG (123KB - 1021 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
| hey neighbor. I was there on last day. the really big ripper is those on the Komatsu 475.
single shank runs about 6 or 7 feet deep. double shank they run 5 feet deep.
I think the Komatsu 475 is about 900 horsepower.
you know where farmersville is? |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Sure...by Visalia...your right about that ripper. Must use that to yank roots from from vineyards and orchards? |
|
| |
|
Driftless SW Wisconsin | Brian, the same question came to my mind as I was reading down to your post - why? California obviously doesn't have the freeze/thaw cycles but why does anyone anywhere need to go 36" deep??? I am also glad to finally hear someone mention the "soup" you can get after deep ripping! The soil looses it's structure, compacts more and further "proves" the need for deep ripping....a self fulfilling loop. And 35-100 gallons of diesel per hour???? with very heavy D-9's (I think of them as a tool used building highways through the mountains) compacting the soil just ahead of the ripper which is barely as wide as the tractor?? And this 36" is required to grow lettuce, etc? I guess I am just an east-of-the-rockies person. Jim at Dawn |
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | We only rip for cotton. Certainly don't need it for lettuce, whea, tomatoes, or garlic! Most of our dirt has tile and we are trying to leach as much salts out of the soil as possible. We rip to make sure that we can move water through the soil and not create a clay layer that impedes water flow. We DO NOT run D-9's!!! We use MT875 & 865 for deep tillage. For lighter tillage such as chisels and disks, we use lighter cats to reduce compaction. We rip at 30 degree angles, have all of our rows GPS'd so that our true compaction rows are in the exact same place every year. Don't know about you, but I don't see any compaction on these fields...you? Something must be working
 (Compaction.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
Compaction.JPG (48KB - 1141 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Hanford, CA | Here is a pic of compaction using steel track Cats...D8s. Look on the right corner running at an angle. You can see the compaction of ripping. This is what we avoid by running ligher MT865s.
 (Compaction using D8s.JPG)
Attachments
----------------
Compaction using D8s.JPG (56KB - 1040 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Malheur County Oregon | Our bottom ground that has been farmed for 75-100 years had developed a layer of black heavy crud at the 12-14" depth and by deep ripping and plowing at twice the depth of normal plow depth we have been able to pull up some fresh sandier soil that has mellowed the ground out alot. We only do this once every 10 years or so. But every acre on the farm gets plowed conventionaly every year and the Beet, spud and onion ground gets ripped also. On the fields that are really bad we have even brought in plows pulled with cats that will go up to 4 ft deep to get into fresh ground.
On an onion crop that will follow a wheat crop the stubble is shredded and disked twice,refurrowed out and watered back to sprout the volunter wheat Disked again then ripped then plowed then a roller harrow twice and ridged up till spring
The soil in this part of world has almost no organic matter to it and getting water to soak in is a major issue. For example in the summer time if we get a thunder boomer with more than a 1/2 in of rain in an hours time we have water running every where from the flash flood.
We still have to do conventional tillage just to get things to break down so we can plant small seeded row crops in a clean seed bed. Between mild to no winters with a anuall rainfall of less than 12 inches it's a different ball game out west.
Trust me if we could we would reduce our trips across the fields. |
|
| |
|
NW Washington | Seems I read somewhere that the big single ripper and 750 hp (I think) Komatsu crawler was being used to rip up the calechie (sp) layer before planting almond trees. |
|
| |
|
Driftless SW Wisconsin | Exactly....if you are pulling a mega ripper to break up compaction and then can see the compaction caused by the tractor tracks which were trying to eliminate previous compaction it seems like maybe we ought to step back and think about this whole thing a bit...jmho. Jim at Dawn Thanks for the photos - are you a pilot?
Edited by Jim 3/20/2007 02:27
|
|
| |
|
Driftless SW Wisconsin | I can understand why there is about zero organic matter in the soil in this system. It might be interesting to know what the "natural" organic matter % was here before it was farmed. Or was this a desert area? With only 12" of rain I assume most is irrigated? Jim at Dawn |
|
| |
|
West Texas | 
We do this every once in while and haven't in a few years now due to the price of fuel. Run those plows about 24-26" deep. We'd go deeper if we could but would need more ground clearance on the tractors.
|
|
| |
|
Little River, TX | When I also visit my youngest First Cousin in Visalia. Something I do when the California Alfalfa Symposium is in the area. |
|
| |
|
Pasco WA. | In my area the natural organic matter was around .5 %. It's rare to find anything much over 1% even after being farmed for 40 years. In this area we only get 6" of annual rainfall. We are also pivot irrigated and do not do the extensive tillage that the surface irrigation guys do. We need to keep some trash to prevent wind erosion. |
|
| |
|
Malheur County Oregon | Jim, This country was all sagebrush. This picture shows the area just as things were being broke out of the desert as irrigation project came in. There are some pretty neat photos in these links.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/b?ammem/fsaall:LC-USF34-021560-...
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?mcc,gottscho,detr,nfor,wpa,aa...
 (8b15608t.gif)
Attachments
----------------
8b15608t.gif (14KB - 1087 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Central IL | Thanks for the thread and pictures. Very interesting stuff. I can't even imagine 4 or 5 feet deep! I don't have any equipment that could get the shanks in that far let alone pull it! I'm thinking we'd lose some drainage tiles along the way somewhere as well. Always interesting to see different practices in different areas/situations.
|
|
| |
|
Huntley Montana | Minimum or no till doesn't work too well with furrow irrigation. Trash raises LL with water flow. Also we do not have the benifit of 1000s of years of good grass to build organic matter. A lot of the "dirt" in the irrigated areas never had any organic matter to speak of. I'm farming ground that without water might produce 2-500# of dry matter a acre a yr. 4" annual percipt in a "good year". Most of this ground doesn't have worms even. |
|
| |
|
| In our area we have a contrast of systems. The irrigated farms are mostly flood or furrow irrigated and those can be a real compaction creator, particularly with cultivation. In the dryland areas we can get benefit from keeping residue on top and run as little tillage as possible. We're a flood plain and the soil didn't have much organic matter. I guess it's still too new in mother natures scheme of things. We get about 26" annual rainfall. Ripping is popular down here but not at those depths. |
|
| |
|
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | http://www.agristruction.com/
I have seen these guys ripping ground down in the valley with a D10, pulling one shank. I don't know exactly how deep, but the wear mark on the shank was over the top of my head, I am a little over 6'. They were prepping ground for almonds and had to break up a hard layer about 3-4' down.
The other thing to consider is most of the ground in the San Joaquin Valley is susceptible to salt build up. There is a clay layer down there that can seal up and not let the irrigation water percolate on through. So you have to break it up every few years or you start to get a buildup of salt and waterlogged subsoil. As nice as it would be, there isn't a no till practice that can solve that issue. Much of this ground also has a wide rotation that includes vegetable crops, and those cannot tolerate residue at all, therefore tillage.
|
|
| |
|
| If you used that ripper on my ground you could get through the frost today. :^) And you would never get to plant cause you would be icking rocks for the next two summers. It has it's place I supose but the frost went close to 4' deep in the feilds this year so that helps take out a lot of compaction for FREE.
Nathan |
|
| |
|
Slicker than a Yes album. | Ben, do you know if these are vibrating shank rippers, or just solid pull type? Interesting pictures, a local construction company used a plow as in the pictures. Although it only turned over about two and a half foot furrow. 95E pulled it with a D9 pushing on the back. |
|
| |
|
Rugby Ontario Canada | If ya used that ripper here or the biggerones that go 4 to 5' deep you would be bringing up lots of stones and gravel |
|
| |
|
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | I've only seen ones that are solid pull shanks. Never heard of anything that vibrates a shank on ag machines, only on construction type machines. |
|
| |
Wilcox Ripper @ Tulare Farm Show
