Attachment for soil prep in rocky soils

[greggyy]

Hi all,

What attachments will work best for soils that are shallow and rocky.....want to convert some pasture to small plots of things like pumpkin....potoato....brocolli etc

I do not think you could drage a plough throug top soil....have been raking up lots of largecand small rocks and have some all rock ridges....

 

[Thomas]

Do you think heavy duty land scape rake will help?

 

[oosik]

I agree with Thomas AND a LOT of bending and picking. Any land engagement implement - plow, disk, harrow - will bring up a fresh crop. So, be advised.

 

[deserteagle71]

I agree with Thomas AND a LOT of bending and picking. Any land engagement implement - plow, disk, harrow - will bring up a fresh crop. So, be advised.

Yup. I grew up on a farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. Rock picking was an annual ritual the whole time I lived there. If you tilled the soil, the next step was ALWAYS to pick up the rocks that had been brought up. Small ones went in a trailer and large ones were rolled onto a skid we called a "stone boat".

 

[flingwing1969]

Skeleton rock bucket will work nicely.

 

[oosik]

Stone boat - - reminds me, all this land around me was given as homesteads by the federal gov back in the 1880's & 1890's. The primary reason - oil exploration. The closest oil rig near this area would be found in Texas.

Anyhow - my property was homesteaded in 1892 - the property adjoining on the North, a little earlier. Word is that the family had five boys - there are two horse drawn stone boats on the property. I've got to go over and get pics of them before they melt into the landscape. They cleared numerous fields and created miles and miles of "stone fence line".

 

[Rustyiron]

Skeleton rock bucket will work nicely.

View attachment 545572

I found them to only work in very dry soils with no vegetation otherwise it will clog up and not let what little soil that I'm dealing with fall through. It also required vigorous fast shaking on my SS that most tractor loaders can't do.

 

[flingwing1969]

I found them to only work in very dry soils with no vegetation otherwise it will clog up and not let what little soil that I'm dealing with fall through. It also required vigorous fast shaking on my SS that most tractor loaders can't do.

Yes. I'm able to shake mine okay to get the dirt and duff cleared but I also have the benefit of five months of no rain every year, reliably. Our soil - like yours in Maine probably, is mostly rock - ours is all volcanic though.

 

[deserteagle71]

Stone boat - - reminds me, all this land around me was given as homesteads by the federal gov back in the 1880's & 1890's. The primary reason - oil exploration. The closest oil rig near this area would be found in Texas.

Anyhow - my property was homesteaded in 1892 - the property adjoining on the North, a little earlier. Word is that the family had five boys - there are two horse drawn stone boats on the property. I've got to go over and get pics of them before they melt into the landscape. They cleared numerous fields and created miles and miles of "stone fence line".

Stone fence was all we had...every field was bordered this way. Here's a photo of myself and my siblings in front of one of the fences. Note the date on the photo! All the fences are gone now...sold and shipped to Japan.

 

[Oldoak]

Yup. I grew up on a farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. Rock picking was an annual ritual the whole time I lived there. If you tilled the soil, the next step was ALWAYS to pick up the rocks that had been brought up. Small ones went in a trailer and large ones were rolled onto a skid we called a "stone boat".

Yep, those stone walls sure bring back memories.

I once asked my dad not to use so much fertilizer so we wouldn't have to pick a new crop of rocks the following year.

 

[kco]

As others mentioned you need the right conditions for a rock bucket to work. Two of my neighbours tried clearing with rock buckets with no success. Our soil is glacial till with lots of vegetation. I use a tough cultivator and landscape rake to clear our areas. The cultivator will pick out softball-size rocks and loosen up to basketball-size rocks. Then I have to pick the large ones out by hand. The landscape rake is good for collecting the smaller rocks and finishing the surface.

 

[Gary Fowler]

For surface or near surface rocks, I found that a disk harrow works well. I never had much luck raking them into a pile, just got a lot of grass and dirt. Pick up by hand and put them in the Kubota dump bed works well if your back can stand it.

 

[greggyy]

I have a heavy duty rake......have diamond drag harrows, a borrowed single tyne ripper, so could just rip and rake till larger rock is out, if I rip to say 1foot down that should allow rake to drag through.

So I stilll should get a plough ? a cultivator I was thinking of, it would be faster and similar to ripper, then something to form rows ? I was thinking of a box blade with rippers, would that work like the cultivator, or are they too shallow and burdened by the box (think I am answering the question there)

Area I will work likely to be small, quarter to half acre, so if budget is tight, what would you choose ?

I also guess rotary hoes are out, too expensive and prob turn the rocky soil into concrete over time and also breaking blades and clutches wearing etc, I do not plan trying to get all rock out.

 

[greggyy]

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/393251-ok-so-i-got.html

 

[LouNY]

If your budget is limited, use that single shank ripper, cross rip it, then go through it and pick all the stone bigger than you wish to plant around, then if you can get one a nice set of discs and disc the ground if needed pick stone again. from what I have seen a York rake will not aid your stone picking much.

 

[Egon]

Skeleton rock bucket will work nicely.

View attachment 545572

This will work. It will be slow though. You'll need a passes thru though. He first digs things up, lays out clumps and let's them dry. You'll also get big rocks on this pass. The second pass shakes out the dirt and removes the dried up vegetation. On the third the ground will be broken up enough so you get the screen action to separate the rocks.

A few passes with the teeth down with the box blade will really help.

All it takes is patience and time.

 

[flingwing1969]

This will work. It will be slow though. You'll need a passes thru though. He first digs things up, lays out clumps and let's them dry. You'll also get big rocks on this pass. The second pass shakes out the dirt and removes the dried up vegetation. On the third the ground will be broken up enough so you get the screen action to separate the rocks.

A few passes with the teeth down with the box blade will really help.

All it takes is patience and time.

Absolutely not the end all, be all, but what it does is take away all of the stooping, bending, and lifting of rocks one does dig up. Hydraulics are so very much better than muscles for this sort of thing - in my humble opinion.

Good idea with the BB rippers. Run those over and follow up with a rock picker or a modified root grapple (smaller spaces) to pick up what you have uncovered and do it again until you are happy.

 

[FarmWrench]

Remove the rocks works but do whatever you can to keep the soil and build organic matter.

 

[jenkinsph]

I bought a rock bucket years ago and found it does not work as well as I expected. I have considered adding a hydraulic powered shaker to it. That would help get the dirt to fall through but would still require dry conditions to work.

 

[oosik]

There are "rock pickers" that are PTO powered but they are uber expensive. The gloved hand and a curved tine pitch fork have been my weapons of choice.