Tiller Tractor Speed For Running Tiller

Hzgray · Mar 8, 2006

I was wondering what the optimum speed for running a roto tiller should be. The slowest speed on a JD 5105 at operating RPM is ~1.8 mph from what I've read. I am looking at buying a 5105 (among others) but I need to be able to till an acre or so. Thanks.
Bill

cp1969 · Mar 8, 2006

An acre seems like a lot of tilling.

I run it at rated PTO rpm unless in ground that is very loose.

Hzgray · Mar 8, 2006

I was afraid that the actual speed of the tractor might be too high to efficiently till (1.8mph).

beenthere · Mar 8, 2006

Seems what you are tilling will dictate most regards the ground speed you can operate at. I like the HST for the tiller and one can match the ground speed to the ground being worked. Sometimes real slow and sometimes a bit faster than the slowest one can go in a gear tractor.

rambler · Mar 8, 2006

That seems to be a very fast low gear for a modern tractor, are you sure you looked at the charts right? Doesn't seem right. How many speeds does it have?

--->Paul

Hzgray · Mar 8, 2006

It is 8x4. The reason I even thought about this is that in the reviews section someone mentioned that the gearing wasn't suitable for tilling. Having never tilled before I thought I would ask the group. I am trying to save a few bucks by going with gears when I decide which tractor to buy.
Bill

thcri · Mar 8, 2006

Some tractors you can get a creeper gear. We have had this discussion here on TBN before. I personal preference for tilling is HST. You get down right slow. First time through on virgin ground you need to be down there.

murph

HillbillyFarmer · Mar 9, 2006

Hzgrey, I have a 5205 with a 681 tiller.
The tractor needs to be cranking at PTO speed to make the tiller effective. At those RPMs, the speed of the tractor seems a bit fast for tilling, but it works fine. I've readwhere someone said it was too fast, but in the hard clay soil we have around here, it's not a problem. I just tilled a large garden plot of virgin soil and it worked without a hitch once I got everything adjusted properly.
Later this summer I will be tilling a 3 acre hay field for reseeding. I have another 10 acres of hay fields I'll be tilling over the next few years.
I don't think an acre is very much to till. My new garden is about a 1/4 acre and it takes me about 10 minutes for one pass. Next year I plan on putting in at least an acre of veggies.
Beats the heck out of plows and disk.

HGM · Mar 9, 2006

You'll find that you can adjust the depth to match your speed. Obviously, the more hard ground you try to till the slower you need to go..My tiller works great all the way down in virgin soil in Low-1, providing there are no rocks..Rocks arent fun...Last big area I did, my buddy ran his tractor ahead of me with a springtooth plow to breeak it up a bit with another buddy removing some of the rocks that turned up..

If I was buying new, I'd look at the HST over the gear, they seem to be reliable and certainly easier to drive with implements.

grandad · Mar 9, 2006

You bring up a great point about rocks. I found that if the soil is rocky, dropping the rpm's down keeps the tiller from getting beaten up or getting jammed quite so much.

ShaneD · Mar 9, 2006

I started tilling about 2 1/2 acres last week so I still have this fresh in my mind.

My intent, when starting, was to kill the grass first so depth wasn't really as important on the first pass. On virgin soil, depending on moisture content, I was mostly using Low3 or Low4 on my Kubota 3430/6ft tiller. (I think the JD5105 may be around 40hp? Not sure.) I think the Low4 gear is around 3mph. 90% of the time i ran the tiller completely lowered. Only raised it when i saw RPMS starting to fall off.

In areas of high moisture content it was much slower than the areas that were dry. Going back over it on the 2nd day, after it had time to dry out some, it was much faster going (less bogging down).

I guess it really depends on what your trying to do. My project is to kill the grass and break up a few inches so i can move some dirt around and level out the property. If your plan is to till a field for planting or if you are working on a vegetable garden then I'm sure you will want to go a bit slower and run at full depth all the time.

Just remember. With a tiller you'll be doing 10x the work in a whole lot less time.

john_bud · Mar 9, 2006

HI,

I till with a KK 60" using a L3410 with HST. It really is the cats meow for matching speed to ground condition. It can do 2 acres of virgin ground in a day. That's about what I do, but it is recently cut saplings with a mix of small, medium and huge rocks, stumps and a few Wazits. Probably 1/3 or more of the time is spent jumping off the tractor to toss rocks, clear out roots and look for the Wazit that caused the noise.

Do yourself a favor and get a slip clutch on the tiller. A new field will almost always yield 10-20 good snifs of clutch material. It's a lot easier to sniff that than change a bolt!

If you do get a tractor with "fast" low gearing, a reverse rotation tiller might do a better job. They do cost more though.

jb

ScottAR · Mar 9, 2006

I see my worry was unfounded... What adjustments fixed the problem??

LBrown59 · Apr 6, 2006

( Hzgrey, I have a 5205 with a 681 tiller.
The tractor needs to be cranking at PTO speed to make the tiller effective. At those RPMs, the speed of the tractor seems a bit fast for tilling, but it works fine. I've readwhere someone said it was too fast, but in the hard clay soil we have around here, it's not a problem. I just tilled a large garden plot of virgin soil and it worked without a hitch once I got everything adjusted properly.
Later this summer I will be tilling a 3 acre hay field for reseeding. I have another 10 acres of hay fields I'll be tilling over the next few years.
I don't think an acre is very much to till. My new garden is about a 1/4 acre and it takes me about 10 minutes for one pass. Next year I plan on putting in at least an acre of veggies.
Beats the heck out of plows and disk. )I have about . 6 of an acre I need tilled and seeded for grass.
There are lots of 1'' to 2'' roots and a few that are 2 to 4 inch along with a few stumps.
Do you think your tractor and tiller would have a problem tilling a piece of land like this?

HEC · Apr 6, 2006

I ran into the same situation when buying my tractor as the low speed on the M5700 Kubota was to fast for what I needed also.I chose to have to have the creeper gears installed when I purchased it and so happy I did as I have used them so much more than I ever thought I would.I recommend them very highly.I use to help my dad rototill about 2 acres of garden every year.Soil conditions can vary so much it is hard to say what speed will be right for you so try and get a tractor with all the speeds that you can.Hst would be great for tilling for sure but just wasn't for some of the other things I use a tractor for so I chose creeper gears to get all the speeds I would ever need.
Good Luck,
Herb

Glenn9643 · Apr 6, 2006

Bill,
If you haven't settled on a tractor yet and prefer gear look for the "creeper" option. On some it's standard and others you can often get it as an optional item. My creeper range gives plenty slow enough speeds to till anything I've encountered.

NewToy · Apr 6, 2006

I just tilled a 30x60 garden in virgin Ohio soil with my 48" KKII tiller. My tractor is gear drive with low gear being .73 mph @ pto speed. I found this to be just about right, I don't think I would want to go much faster. I dropped my rpm's down a notch on the first pass just to slow down a bit in case I found some "buried treasure". (rocks)

John

HillbillyFarmer · Apr 6, 2006

Sorry, just saw your question. . .
I had to adjust my draft links (by adjusting the lift links) because the tiller wasn't going low enough. It's a new rig and the original adjustment worked fine with my brush hog, but took me a while to figure out why the tiller wasn't going low enough.

HillbillyFarmer · Apr 6, 2006

( ( Hzgrey, I have a 5205 with a 681 tiller.
The tractor needs to be cranking at PTO speed to make the tiller effective. At those RPMs, the speed of the tractor seems a bit fast for tilling, but it works fine. I've readwhere someone said it was too fast, but in the hard clay soil we have around here, it's not a problem. I just tilled a large garden plot of virgin soil and it worked without a hitch once I got everything adjusted properly.
Later this summer I will be tilling a 3 acre hay field for reseeding. I have another 10 acres of hay fields I'll be tilling over the next few years.
I don't think an acre is very much to till. My new garden is about a 1/4 acre and it takes me about 10 minutes for one pass. Next year I plan on putting in at least an acre of veggies.
Beats the heck out of plows and disk. )I have about . 6 of an acre I need tilled and seeded for grass.
There are lots of 1'' to 2'' roots and a few that are 2 to 4 inch along with a few stumps.
Do you think your tractor and tiller would have a problem tilling a piece of land like this? )

Don't know. . . haven't hit too many rocks, stumps or roots, but I suspect it would slice right through them. It destroys the hard clay soil on my hillside and doesn't seem to notice fairly large fist sized and bigger rocks.

monkeymonk · Apr 6, 2006

Got my tiller the other day /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif busted up the virgin ground first with 3prong buster to get deep and break up the ground first. Now uma thinking rock fork /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Glad i busted the virgin first other wise it would have been jam city and i got to know what i was getting into rock, rock, and more rocks! didn't look rocky they were just hiding. I love implements /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif