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west central Iowa | Our 542 base can be plugged in to 110 or we can power with a 12V battery. There is also an internal battery that lasts maybe 8 hours. When we are tiling we either plug it in, or use a 12V battery to keep internal battery charged. With base in field, plow never has to wait for signal! I staple a 5/8 bolt to side of good wooden post. This way I can come back to same location if necessary.
The field we tiled this summer had 17 rows of live corn over every tile that worked. So we put a 4" tile every 40'. We actually were tiling into corn this year. The tractor and plow straddle the rows fairly well, and we only took out 1 row on each side of the boot. We rented a track closer and filled tracks. They were soft at harvest yet, but didn't have to drive in that row.
Our 8640 would max out pulling 4" boot about 49" deep this summer, without pre ripping. Usually putting tile in at 36-40". We could pre rip about 20+" deep going back to bottom end of field, if we had a ridge to get through with tile. I did find a couple big rocks that stopped the tractor this way. I just went back a ways and pre ripped a couple feet around rock. Not a fan of digging out big rock and leaving a depression to lay tile through. We pre ripped every run this fall, where as we didn't have to do that this spring/summer.
When we pre ripped 20" deep, we could see old tile trenches when we crossed them. When we came back and plowed tile, we moved enough dirt that we could no longer see old trenches.
We like to use 8640 on plow. We don't use it a whole lot any more, so we can hook it up and leave plow on for a longer period of time. Our newer tractor is 305, don't know if that tractor is as heavy as 8640 or not. 305 spins out easier though.
We do have a heavy factory cable to hook a second tractor up. Have used it a few times and really handy! Second tractor not a huge pain, as cable coiled on front of plow tractor ready to go. Just drop pin and go. The thing is, the places that need the tile can be hard and surface a little slick. Second tractor more for traction than anything else. 6" boot will pull harder that a 4. One reason I went to 4" boot was to hopefully avoid a second tractor in standing corn.
One thing we noticed this fall, was that there seemed to be a hard ring around low spots. We would spin to get into low areas and spin to get out, but low spot pulled decent. We didn't have any of this in early summer with damp soils.
We finished this field after harvest and shallowed the tile up a few inches, due to dry soil and we didn't need to be that deep in that part of the field. There were some existing laterals we wanted to keep, so we put new tile in a couple inches above them. Tile much easier to deal with when warm!
We put a tile feeder on plow this spring, that was money well spent! We can drive next to plow with cart and pull tile from cart to plow with feeder. So much easier! Not stretching tile either.
Aaron Newall (Magnuman) up by Roelyn has a new 542 for $8-9,000. They are over 12 new at dealer. VERY simple to use!
Hope I didn't ramble too long! | |
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