[AT] potato planting

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

Sorry Herb! I did leave a lot of folks in the dark with that!  Here in 
tobacco country it is pretty much a given fact that 95% or more of gardens 
tended by tractors are done so by the Farmall offset series tractors--Cubs 
through 140's. Yes there are some Allis B's and G's and a few Deere M's and 
40's, but they just don't work as well for cultivating, never have never 
will. If that offends anyone, get over it, the sales numbers don't lie.
Now that you know what style tractor I am referring to, here is how they are 
set-up to cultivate. The front cultivators (mounted under the center of the 
tractor) are switched up for different tasks. For making rows, You pretty 
much have 2 options, disc hillers and buzzard wings. Disc hillers are 
essentially 12-14" dia cupped discs, like a harrow or disc plow uses, set to 
oppose each other that will throw the dirt towards the center of the 
tractor. Buzzard wings are about 18-24" long pieces of flat steel in pretty 
much an elongated tear drop shaped pattern, they are setup the same way as 
disc hillers. Buzzard wings allow you to drive faster as they push the dirt, 
where the disc hillers can throw the dirt beyond where you want it to go. 
Immediately behind the rear wheels are mounted a large V-shaped cultivator 
sweep about 18-20" wide. This is for plowing out the middles (where the 
tractor runs).

Start with your land harrowed (disced) to your satisfaction. If you want 
tall plant beds, run your front and rear cultivators. Careful or you will 
get them so high you can't get any dirt to your plants later on. We 
generally use the front rather shallow and the back down all the way. Once 
you have your rows bedded, you can drove on top of them and let your back 
sweeps down to open the rows, obviously you will be working to rows at once. 
There is another option which is to install a row opener on the front 
cultivators. This is just a single small shovel that does the same as using 
the rear seeps, just on one row at a time.

Once the crop is up there are multiple options for cultivating including 
using multiple small shovels or straight teeth (similar to a chisel plow), 
rolling cultivtors (think rotary hoe mounted on a compound angle so it will 
work the side of the bed to tear up weeds as well as move dirt toward the 
plants), also fertilizer attachments can be used.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Al, Charlie, feel free to add anything I missed. Of course Charlie is 
probably mad at me because I don't like his beloved AC's for cultivating!

John Hall


-----Original Message----- 
From: Herb Metz
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 11:05 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] potato planting


John,
Your descriptive reply is probably very complete, but to a person from the
midwest, it is not understandable.  Would appreciate further elaboration,
using different terms.
TIA, Herb

-----Original Message----- 
From: jtchall at nc.rr.com
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 10:36 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] potato planting

Charlie, we bed the land and then drive on top of the row and run just the
rear sweeps to open them. Generally we don't bed it too high initially or
you'll never get any dirt up to the plants.

John Hall

-----Original Message----- 
From: charlie hill
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 4:44 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] potato planting

Ron when I was growing up that was pretty much standard for all garden rows
as well as tobacco rows.
Then we had a board or something similar to a grader blade that knocked off
the top of the row to
make a flat spot for planting.  Folks still do it here for gardens.   For
big time farming it's all done
with one machine as Grant described.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Cook
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 2:14 PM
To: jdat ; Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: [AT] potato planting

Has anyone used a lister to prepare a potato patch for planting?

Ron Cook
Salix, IA
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