6ft Rotory Tiller not getting job done

[johng143]

For smaller patches I notice my rototiller has a much easier time cutting sod and matted weed If the sod has had a glysophate treatment 3 or 4 weeks earlier.

For hard sod or matted weed fields discing is the way to start out me thinks.

 

[bigtiller]

That is mis information at it's best... (worst)

99% of my tiller jobs are reclaiming old ground, pastures ect., anyone "claiming" that tillers weren't designed to do this, is just showing their ignorance about tillers.

Perhaps they have only seen cheapo tillers, well built tillers can and will take on ANY ground, including ground with rocks in it. This field was a VERY old pasture full of all kinds of junk and rocks,

Today that tiller has over 2,000 acres on it, and still has the original chain, sprockets, bearing ect...

This site has more mis information about tillers and how to use them than any other I've ever been to. lol

SR

You're absolutely right, that's been my experience also. After 25 years of custom tilling with a <25 hp tractor, I never needed to plow or disc the ground first.

 

[stoillion]

You can see from the responses that some have tilled un-turned ground and some would never till without breaking up the soil first. Are some right and some wrong? I think it all depends on the soil that you are working. To illustrate with extremes, assume you want to till a sandy beach, do you need to plow it first to break it up? Absolutely not. In fact it would be a waste of fuel. Next go to a limestone ledge. You will never till it. You would have to start with the proper equipment to break up the limestone and pulverize it before you do anything with it. Our soils all fall somewhere in the middle. With clays, moisture content is also critical. If its too wet its pore space becomes much reduced, it becomes practically impervious to air and water, and becomes very "sticky". When too dry, it becomes hard and dense. If plowed too dry, great clods are turned up which are difficult to work into a good seedbed.

What you are preparing the land for is also important. If you are planting lawn grass you don't want to go very deep or you will be fighting uneven settlement and rough lawn. 2" of pulverized soil is perfect for a lawn but not for a corn crop. I'm in east central Kansas and we have a lot of clay in the soil. A farmer near my house converted a number of pastures to crop ground. I think what he did was great for this area and our clays. Round 1 - Deep Soil Ripping! Google it for its benefits. This also loosened the soil for Round 2 - Disk Plow. He let this set over the winter. Round 3 - Disk Plow. Round 4 - Plant. Now he only uses a no-till drill to plant.

I love rototillers and the way they pulverize and prepare the soil but they don't go very deep. For crop preparation its really better to start with something that will go deeper to start with and then the tiller will work fine for several years. Growing up in SD we used to hire the neighbor to plow the field with a moldboard plow every 4 or 5 years and we used a disk after the plowing and in other years. Eventually we bought a chisel plow. You could put straight shanks on for ripping and sweeps for weeding summer fallow.

 

[rgevans871]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

I would say you definitely have an adjustment problem. I have 32 HP tractor with a 5 ft. tiller from Tractor Supply. I and my son have worked up quite a few acres of sod that had probably 10 years to establish itself after the farmer renting my property went bankrupt and left all my fields just plowed. I also have a clay loam. We had to run in second gear in making the first pass and it definitely was all the tractor could handle. I was wishing for a few more HP, but never had a problem with the tiller disengaging.

 

[holladay farmer]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

1. spray to kill weeds. dry straw is easy to break up.
2. clip the weeds into small straw so they will not entangle your tiller.
3. use a breaking plow or cultivator to break the ground deep.
4. adjust your tiller sled rails lower to the ground.
Tillers are not designed to till deep nor are they efficient on virgin weeded ground. If you have followed the above recommendations, breaking the ground will be easy. It is not the fault of the clutch on the PTO.

 

[Bobrown14]

Slip clutch may be too loose. Read the manual and see how to adjust it is where I would start. Or take back to the dealer since they are new and you just bought them.

Tighten the slip clutch with a torque wrench to spec.

That will take care of the slipping.

Run the pto at the proper speed for your tractor

Go s l o w - 1st gear lo.

I had my garden plot 150' x 75' plowed by my neighbor with a Moldboard Plow. It completely turns the soil over then you can till it.

My neighbor is a farmer. He's got every attachment cept a tiller.

His moldboard plow cut thru hard pan and flipped it like hot knife thru budder. Took him about 15 minutes to do 4 rows. Maybe not even.

So maybe a neighbor can help its that time of year a lot of farmers are plowing over corn from last year with manure getting ready for planting in a few weeks round these parts.

Make hay when the sun shines.... never know when its going to rain for a week. One thing I learned was dont put off for tomorrow what we need to do today.

Same goes with tilling. Mud is pretty tough on a tiller and the tractor.

 

[Kellermeister]

I don’t depend on a rotary tiller to break the ground after 3 years. I use a moldboard plow then a disc. Then when it isn’t too wet or dry, I drag the tiller over it both ways. All of this could take a couple of months Depending on the weather.
PS. I hate slip clutches. I prefer to replace cheap shear bolts and nuts rather than an expensive hard to find clutch. I’ve rigged a replacement for just about every slip clutch that I’ve burned out in the last 10 years.

 

[Surshot]

If a neighbor has a heavy cutter head disk (scalloped blades), it should cut that soil to where your tiller will move it OK. My old heavy, House 18” blade disks will cut my hard road bed clay with 2-3” roots in it.

 

[Gil A]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 morer acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank yor

Several things to do or check. As mentioned tension of slip clutch may be adjusting. Here are other things to check or do.
1- since field over grown and had to mow may have more trash on surface than tiller can handle, thus need as one mentioned using a bottom plow to turn it under or use a disk harrow, which will cut trash and help in turning it under.
2- Tillers do a lot of work but works best on hard or trashy surface if travel slow. My first use of a tiller was behind a John Deere 70 HP tractor. Friend's tiller on loan and told me it was rated for a 45HP tractor and to travel slow. But since my tractor was 70 HP thought could use 2nd gear. Bad idea.... it bounced and barely broke the surface. Shifted down to 1st (low gear) and it did an excellent job in renovation an old pasture that had no tillage in about 20 years.
Good luck, Gil

 

[sallyb]

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

New 48hp tractor and 6ft Tar River tiller. Others told me this tiller is a good unit, and I trust their opinion. My land hasn't been farmed in 3 years, so weeds have grown. I mowed the weeds down first. I then hookup up my tiller and gave it a try. Ground is clay, loam so not exactly peat. The tiller's Slip-Clutch PTO protection keep the tines from running most of the time, basically making very little progress. I went over the land three times, having to adjust 3pt manually up just scraping the dirt so didn't engage the Slip=Clutch PTO protection. Painfully slow process. End result is maybe 2-3 inches of depth of till.

I'm wondering if I first need to get a small cultivator this run over this ground first? I have about 6 more acres to go and seems very inefficient to continue with the tiller like this. Can anyone think i'm missing anything here? I'd love to just keep the tiller on and not swap it out and buy another implement (plus hooking up the tiller was a pain in the @ss). Thank you

I have same kind of land red clay river bottom, I found that harrow disc then Toto till, and if you have access to water , water first. The land is like a brick without watering first. It would be very time consuming to use Tito tiller.