3-Point Hitch Best implement for de-rocking?

[CalG]

a grapple bucket (with or without the top piece) makes a useful stone picker. Drive along with the teeth in the soil about 6 inches and fill the bucket. Deposit the load and repeat (every year) until your plot is what you want.

BTDT ;-)

I assume you are not talking New Hampshire Granite "stones" ;-)

eta

Here in Vermont, our best crop is stone. Matures early spring, and stores well. Not so much of a market ....yet! ;-)

 

[Egon]

An alternate method that removes rock but leaves it in place!

 

[Rmart30]

If it was me and its a good size area bite the bullet, save tearing up your equipment and find someone with a dozer with a rock/debris rake on the front and let them do it. What they can do in a cpl of hours would take you a very long time.

 

[EverythingAttachments]

This Bradco 55" Compact Tractor Rock Bucket is the best one I know of for smaller tractors because it weighs only 278 pounds.
It comes standard with a universal quick attach mount.
Travis

 

[idmcimam]

I have everything from pebbles to glacial erratic boulders the size of small trucks. About 3 ft. of silty, rocky topsoil and then granite bedrock. I try to grow a small patch of grass and usually get a beautiful crop of weeds. I have a medium duty grapple that works fairly well for getting some of the glacial watermelons out of the "soil" if I point it at a slight downangle and move forward to loosen them up. I've got a large pile of these that I'll sell cheap if anyone's interested

 

[4570Man]

I pop up rocks with a backhoe or a ripper or a stump bucket. Rocks over a hundred pounds I pick up with a grapple or pallet forks. I haven’t spent big money on a dedicated attachment and I really have my doubts about them so I pick up the smaller rocks by hand.

 

[Tom King]

I did a whole, multi-level cross country (horse) course with a tiller. First I disked it, then a normal pass with the tiller. The last pass, I tied up the flap on the back. It tossed the rocks up in the air to land on top of the dirt. Then two helpers with metal stall pitchforks picked them up, and threw into the following tractor bucket.

We don't have anything larger than half fist sized river rocks though, and not really that many of them. That was probably 20 years ago, and rocks have never been a problem there since.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I own a rock bucket and it's the most useless thing I own.

Maybe in a field, dusty dry conditions, with a machine where you can see the working edge, it would work (and does). Give it wet material, roots and sod and it's useless.

I have a Harley Rake that does a great job windrowing rocks, but how do you pick them up without taking a bunch of top soil?

I have been trying for years now, to get someone to CAD CAM a home made Flip Screen. Google it. A rotating bucket.

 

[edgarrian]

Tractor PTO Power Box Rake Harley Rake

Harley rake as mentioned above is a great way. It does a few things. Picks up the rocks, grades the area and really does a nice job. My dad had one we used for putting out grass for newly built homes. That thing would do an excellent job. These rock buckets really look useless

 

[Gordon Gould]

The best rock bucket I have used to have HyTran in it and my wife has no problem operating it.

gg