Citrus Orchard compaction busting

[lombardi3g]

I want to bust the compacted soil to a depth of 18 inches that we have under the skirts of our citrus trees in rows spaced 20 ft apart. We have about 30" of clearance under the tree skirts for access. I want to attach to the tractor a 3pt 'A' frame with dual 2" toolbars. This will pull 2 gangs of shanks at either end of the tool bars. I hope to run the shanks will a 2" wide shoe on the bottom 6 inches of each shank. The toolbar space directly behind the tractor will be not be tilled - the middle 6 ft of the drive row. I will also leave untilled 3 ft on either side of the toolbar to the tree rows on either side, i.e. 2 by 3ft equals 6 ft. This leaves the 2 swaths to be tilled at 4 ft wide each.

The neighbor says having that much draft that far out on those toolbars will bend them in our heavy soils. I'm inclined to agree with him. As anyone seen a toolbar support system wherein chain or rod is attached to either side of the toolbar which is connected to the nose of the tractor on either side. Or perhaps to a fabricated front-end assembly to transfer forces at the end of the toolbars to the center-front of the tractor where they would cancel each other out??

Your consideration please,
lombardi3g

 

[hddnis]

Do you have some pictures of the tool bars you hope to use?

Another question that comes to mind is it sounds like you will be ripping up part of the root zone? Is this common practice with citrus?

One way to loosen and aerate the soil is with high pressure water injection or an air lance. I've done this for a fair number of larger established trees that were suffering from decline due to compacted soils.




Mr. HE

 

[snowjoker]

What you need to do is make a single gang hanging off the one side of the tractor to go under one row at a time and hitch the end of that gang to a 2nd tractor to pull it. 1 tractor cannot pull the attachment you want to build . When i worked on the apple farm we had something similiar to cut roots to limit the tree groth and it took 2 80 + hp tractors to yank that thing and it was a single shank .. but hung over about 6 feet from the tractors tire