Bog type disc or standard ? Pros and cons

[Rmart30]

Ive been seeing quite a few of the bog type disc for sale locally. What are the pros and cons to them over standard disc?
I can see one advantage for what I use mine for, and that is its half the length and would allow me to get into tighter food plots with it. It also would allow me to haul on my 18 ft trailer where with my regular disc I have to use the GN.

 

[Foodplot]

I use both.
Bog disc is a primary tillage instrument, the 'standard' tandem disc is for secondary tillage.
Bog discs will cut through established sod, but leave big furrows, which you'll want to hit with a secondary tillage implement.
Bog disc is really heavy for the size, takes quite a bit of HP. Most are not 3-pt, but pull-type.
We pretty much just use the bog disc for cutting firebreaks or when we need to turn over NWSG plots.
Good luck.

 

[TripleR]

Pretty much what Foodplot said. Growing up we used one on "new ground" as a plow would get hung up on roots and such. We then ran a regular disk and maybe a harrow behind it.

We are going to be working up CRP land this year, so we bought a 10' cutaway. I'm sure others will have more specifics, I quit real farming a long time ago.

 

[Rmart30]

I picked one up same as this one pictured today except its a 3 PT and not a drag type. Has zero bends or tweaks in it and still has all the original scrapes on it. Tag is still on it showing taylor , and the model # appears to be 20000 but I cant find any info inline about it.

 

[BHD]

What is a bog type disk? I have been farming for nearly 50 years and never heard of one,

 

[MitchellB]

I got this old Bog disk harrow from my father in law a couple years ago. He said his little 8N Ford could not pull it. I pulled it behind my 861D Ford to do a small garden and it really strained the old Ford to pull as well, but it did. However the front end of the old tractor would sway from side to side as it pulled it through the hard clay here. The first time I used mine, I ran a plow over the ground first. The second year, I just used the Bog Harrow first and it did almost as good a job breaking up the soil as the year before when I broke ground first with my potato plow.

 

[TripleR]

What is a bog type disk? I have been farming for nearly 50 years and never heard of one,

I sure thought it would be easier to provide a clear definition, but it seems it applies to the disc I use which I refer to as "cutaway", two gangs cutting in opposite directions rather than twin gangs shaped in opposing Vs as well as the single heavy gang shown by MitchellB.

I plagiarized this from an old post on MyTractorForum by "shimp":


"Offset disc's are a Vee-shaped disc, and not the double chevron shape of a standard disc harrow. Generally, they're very heavy, with wider spacing between blades, and made for primary tillage, generally around stumps, roots' rocks, or rough ground where a conventional plow would struggle. Sometimes an offset disc is referred to as a bog disc or a bush & bog disc. They were intended for clearing ground where heavy roots existed, or to aerify muddy ground."

 

[Gary Fowler]

I sure thought it would be easier to provide a clear definition, but it seems it applies to the disc I use which I refer to as "cutaway", two gangs cutting in opposite directions rather than twin gangs shaped in opposing Vs as well as the single heavy gang shown by MitchellB.

I plagiarized this from an old post on MyTractorForum by "shimp":


"Offset disc's are a Vee-shaped disc, and not the double chevron shape of a standard disc harrow. Generally, they're very heavy, with wider spacing between blades, and made for primary tillage, generally around stumps, roots' rocks, or rough ground where a conventional plow would struggle. Sometimes an offset disc is referred to as a bog disc or a bush & bog disc. They were intended for clearing ground where heavy roots existed, or to aerify muddy ground."

Well I have never heard of an offset disk referred to as a bush and bog disk. All the bush and bog disk I have seen is a tongue pull and you could lift a lever (by pulling on a rope) then back up to put as much set in it as you needed. Then pull up on the lever and go forward to remove all the set. This allowed for travelling with it without doing much damage to the ground cover. They were all single gang (gang being two sections) as opposed to a tandem disc having 2 gangs. You had to make 2 passes with a bush and bog by straddling the furrow made by the first pass so it levelled out the dirt.

The old bush and bog disk were great for making a drainage ditch. Just make as many passes as needed to get the ditch as deep as a foot or more.

 

[TripleR]

Well I have never heard of an offset disk referred to as a bush and bog disk. All the bush and bog disk I have seen is a tongue pull and you could lift a lever (by pulling on a rope) then back up to put as much set in it as you needed. Then pull up on the lever and go forward to remove all the set. This allowed for travelling with it without doing much damage to the ground cover. They were all single gang (gang being two sections) as opposed to a tandem disc having 2 gangs. You had to make 2 passes with a bush and bog by straddling the furrow made by the first pass so it levelled out the dirt.

The old bush and bog disk were great for making a drainage ditch. Just make as many passes as needed to get the ditch as deep as a foot or more.

That was my understanding as well, but it does not seem to apply everywhere. I looked for a simple definition, but seems there isn't one or at least I can't find one. I did a You Tube inquiry and a cutaway disk like the one we just bought. Growing up, we used a bush and bog pulled by an Allis Chalmers with steel wheels to cultivate new ground for a couple of years to keep from fixing flats.

 

[Turbys_1700]

I farmed in the 60's. Back then our primary tillage was 2 and 3 bottom plows in the fall. In the spring we followed up with an old 8 foot Taylor Way offset that had a log and drag behind it. Worked just fine. Planted soy beans, corn wheat, etc...with either a drill or planter followed by a culipacker. Pop later bought a well worn what we referred to as a levelling disc. This is the typical double gang disc most use here in 3 point hitch but ours was a 12 foot pull type. Our "bog" disc was a 131 Athens double gang bohemeth that required north of 100 HP to pull. Different names and nomenclature for the same thing.