Tiller Plow/Disc or Tiller

[Hoosier Farmboy]

I am in the process of pricing a JD 2320, with 200CX FEL, 62D MMM, and a Ballast Box. The new place we are moving to has 5 acres of pasture. I would like to put out a large garden (enough to get back to my childhood memories of selling vegetables on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market.) The question I have is, "Would I be better off to buy a plow and a disc or can a tiller do the same job?" Can a tiller go deep enough for potatoes, etc? Thanks in advance.

 

[Couple of Achers]

I am in the process of pricing a JD 2320, with 200CX FEL, 62D MMM, and a Ballast Box. The new place we are moving to has 5 acres of pasture. I would like to put out a large garden (enough to get back to my childhood memories of selling vegetables on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market.) The question I have is, "Would I be better off to buy a plow and a disc or can a tiller do the same job?" Can a tiller go deep enough for potatoes, etc? Thanks in advance.

We have been gardening for over 10 years and a tiller does an excellent job for smaller plots. Or even larger ones if you have the time. We raise potatoes every year with great success. I would vote for a tiller.

 

[dave1949]

Welcome to TBN!

Maybe you could punt - hire a neighbor to plow down the pasture grass, then see how it goes with a tiller? Seems like a tiller would be a good thing for preparing seed beds for vegetables with small/tiny seeds. May not have to make as many passes as with a disc, and that would mean less soil compaction.
Dave.

 

[jenkinsph]

I use a tiller with great success to handle the majority of my work. Alot would depend on the depth range of the tiller in question. Tillers can run from $600 to upwards of $30,000 and from about 3 inch depth to over 12 inch depth.

That said I use a Deere 673 which is perfect for my uses, covers my tire tracks, tills just over 7 inches deep. If you need to break up deeper I would suggest you run a subsoiler such as one of the type that Tractor supply sells, their not really a subsoiler but you can break up the ground about 12 inches deep with them and the cost is cheap too (about $150). When buying and pricing a tiller you should verify what the working depth is and understandably the ones that cut deeper cost more.

In my opinion a tiller is the best choice for small acreages because you get a good seedbed with only one tool. Tillers with forward rotating tines are also well fitted to light weight tractors since they tend to push the tractor along you don't need alot of weights or ballast which in turn reduces your soil compaction. To clarify this if you were to use other plowing methods that required more tractive effort and weight would you remove all this extra weight before you harrowed the field? Last important difference is a tiller will start working at maximum depth as soon as you engage it with the ground, whereas a disk needs to roll a distance to get to full set. This means you can back a tiller up to a garden fence and till deep as you move away from it.

Let me be the first to say that you should consider a larger tractor than the 2320, I would get something that could handle larger implements. I currently have a 4520 cab and would not want anything smaller than the 4120 as an all in one tractor. Trading up at a later date is too expensive and lots of guys make this mistake.


Steve

 

[flusher]

I am in the process of pricing a JD 2320, with 200CX FEL, 62D MMM, and a Ballast Box. The new place we are moving to has 5 acres of pasture. I would like to put out a large garden (enough to get back to my childhood memories of selling vegetables on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market.) The question I have is, "Would I be better off to buy a plow and a disc or can a tiller do the same job?" Can a tiller go deep enough for potatoes, etc? Thanks in advance.

I used a middle buster plow (aka potato plow) with my Kubota B7510HST (21 hp engine, 17 hp pto, 4WD) to plow the ground for the landscaping around my new house. I did this in Spring during the rainy season here when the ground was soft enough for the 7510 to plow to about 8 inches depth. Then I rototilled with a used Yanmar RS1200 that I bought for $300. Total area was about 1/3 acre. I also use the RS1200 on my veg garden.

 

[Egon]

Go for the tiller. Much handier and quicker.

 

[randy41]

I would want to plow/disc the field first now and then till when I'm ready to plant.

 

[NSBound]

I just went through this, this year. My property is old-time farmland, but had sat for 50 years, growing weeds and brambles and alders . I had the bigger brush hogged out, then just used a tiller, went over it 2 or 3 times. It came out perfect.

 

[Egon]

Dabblam it Ian, where are your rocks.

The tiller may be better in larger rocks than a plow and it sure will cut down on time spent cultivating??

 

[FxdGrMind]

I went with the Tiller, Kuhn 58" on my B7800.

Ran it for the first time this w/e. Tilled under the weeds in the Hop rows. The burn spot and re-seeded. Then went over and tilled under the neighbors garden and enlarged it for next year (they need to pick rocks though!!!)

Then headed across the street and tilled for the other neighbor, a new plot 40'x20'. They REALY need to pick rocks!!!!.

Then I did a 16'x30' plot for myself... spent the whole day Sunday on that.... tilled once then plucked rocks out by hand for hours on end... I'm only 1/2 way done with picking out the rocks but deposited the 3/4 yard of rocks in the stream bed and added new dirt over the top of the planting bed to help level. Then tilled again, 90deg off from the orrigional direction, with great results!

Now to work up the energy to do the other 1/2" of the rock picking! (shakes head in disgust)

 

[IslandTractor]

I just went through this, this year. My property is old-time farmland, but had sat for 50 years, growing weeds and brambles and alders . I had the bigger brush hogged out, then just used a tiller, went over it 2 or 3 times. It came out perfect.

I did exactly the same thing and was very happy with results. My only issue was that the land had been covered with grape vines and Spring tilling was a bit of a nightmare pulling up but not slicing through the roots. When I opened up a fresh plot in the Fall it was no problem at all as the tiller cut the vine roots in the dry soil rather than pulling them out whole from the wet Spring soil.

I'd go with just a tiller for relatively small plots (few acres) but it is likely to be faster to plow and disc for larger acreage.

 

[NSBound]

Dabblam it Ian, where are your rocks.

The rocks are all picked! (oh my aching back!). But there were fewer rocks in this section of the yard, for some reason. It seemed to be nicer and richer soil than the "rocky" part of the yard, so that's where the garden is going!

 

[flusher]

I am in the process of pricing a JD 2320, with 200CX FEL, 62D MMM, and a Ballast Box. The new place we are moving to has 5 acres of pasture. I would like to put out a large garden (enough to get back to my childhood memories of selling vegetables on Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market.) The question I have is, "Would I be better off to buy a plow and a disc or can a tiller do the same job?" Can a tiller go deep enough for potatoes, etc? Thanks in advance.

Get yourself a $150 middle buster plow (aka potato plow) from Tractor Supply and use it first. Then rototill (my tiller is a used $300 Yanmar RS1200, 48" wide). Both worked fine behind my Kubota B7510HST (21 hp engine, 17 hp pto).

 

[dave1949]

The rocks are all picked! (oh my aching back!).

I pick my rocks on hands and knees, toss them into a 5 gal. bucket, empty that into the FEL bucket. It's not my back, it's the stomach compression
Dave.

 

[Baby Grand]

I just used my yellow KK subsoiler set about 16" deep to troll the garden and the "expansion" area. When I need to make furrows for the taters I take the chissel off and bolt on a middle buster blade from Agri Supply. The plant manager wants more mellons, taters and squash next year, so before I go finding anything big with the tiller I always try to do a recon with the subsoiler. Still managed to till up two pieces of 3/8" steel tubing and a short length of chain. Besides, the previous owner had a fairly intimidating disc that he used with an old Ford 4000, so I thought it might not hurt to rip up any residual pan. Two passes with the tiller and now it's ready for rolling and rye.

-Jim

 

[redharley]

I use a 1 bottom plow,old 6 ft pull disk,and a old 2 section drag harrow to do about 1 1/2 acre's.I used this set up for some yr's with good result's. In the spring I can find someone who will let me have some horse manure if I load and haul it, which I spread along with all my composted leaves and such over the whole plot then plow it under let it lay for a while then disk and level with harrow. As the planting season progress's will just harrow up next section to be planted.I kept a 6hp Troy tiller around for between the row weed work and it comes in handy for preparing small areas to be seeded also. Used plow,disk, and harrow less than $600. I use a 22hp kubota to pull these pc's with no problem's

 

[jimjo2]

I too live in Indiana (northern) and just purchased a JD 2520 and a Frontier tiller. It worked great! I tilled my 1/3 acre garden in less than an hour. I used to have a hydraulic unit for my JD 316 that worked okay but I have a real machine now. I definitely vote for the tiller.

 

[bp fick]

Snow's about to set in. What better to dream about next year's garden!!!

This question, "Which is better, a tiller or plow/disc" comes up frequently. There is no one right answer.

The 3 pt tiller is pretty awesome and leaves a wonderful seed bed. But there is a limit to the acreage one might till so slowly. Additionally, if the soil needs to be loosened to a 9" depth first, there will be some prior plowing/sub soiling involved. Plus, a 3 pt tiller is quite a high ticket implement for those starting out and somewhat hard to justify if use is brief or infrequent.

Breaking ground with a plow, especially an inexpensive middle buster, followed by disc and/or spring/spike dragging takes many more trips over the ground. The up side for this approach is that these implements can be had for very little total investment.

Both get the job done, although differently, and at a different cost.

 

[jenkinsph]

Just have to ask how many of you guys think a 2305 can pull a subsoiler 16" deep in rocky soil?

I know when I drop mine down behind a 4520 with weights the tractor definately knows it is there.

 

[bp fick]

While that Deere has a few hp on me, it doesn't have much of a weight advantage. I can run mine down, bit by bit, to 12". I would question the ability, in rocky soil, of any small tractor to just plunge 16" and expect much result. YMMV