[AT] Plows, was Re: Supervision

[deanvp]

I want to respond to Grants question about normal plowing depth.  My actual farm experience goes back to the 50's in NW Iowa.  We never plowed anywhere close to that depth. One of the rules of thumb in plowing was to only turn over top soil not the clay underneath it. Iowa is known as having some of the deepest top soil in the USA.  But in our "gently rolling" land in NW IA one did not want to plow much over 8 to 10" deep on the hills. I don't know how deep the top soil is in the San Jauqeen(sp? no spelling help on my phone) Valley which is flat as a pancake and some of the richest soil in the world.  I drive through it twice a year from one end to the other and I just am in awe of it every time. I doubt there are very many plows designed to plow as deep as you are. That takes some real HP.


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-------- Original message --------
From: jtchall at nc.rr.com 
Date: 06/26/2015  6:41 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com> 
Subject: Re: [AT] Plows, was Re:  Supervision 

We ran 2 IH 450 auto reset plows (4 bottom).  I was only involved plowing 
one summer, we had pretty much quit plowing by the time I got old enough to 
help. We ran pretty deep, we referred to it as breaking land. Pretty sure it 
was over 12" deep we ran, soil is red clay and ro'cks (hence the need for 
auto-reset plows). I think we ran the Deere 4020 in 3rd gear. The other plow 
we ran behind a Deere 4430 at about the same speed. It was about all those 
tractors wanted when you hit a tight spot. Obviously we ran a full set of 
weights on the front. In a nut shell we figured about 20-25 hp per bottom. 
To put it another way, we had a Deere auto-reset plow that used hydraulic 
cylinders instead of springs. I was too little to remember the plow but do 
remember the story of the Deere factory rep that came to the farm because 
the cylinders were not holding up. After some small talk he asked my uncle 
did we always plow so deep. When my uncle replied yes he informed him that 
the plow wasn't designed for such work and there was nothing Deere could do. 
My dad had gone to work for an IH dealer. He brought home a 450 and switched 
plows right in the field. They immediately went up a gear on the tractor 
plowing at the same depth and quit fighting the steering (plow was trying to 
pull the tractor around sideways). A couple years later my family was trying 
out a 4430 vs a 1066. The 4430 won that trial however when the Deere dealer 
tried to get us to buy another plow, it was met with a bit of laughter. The 
1066 was sent back to the dealership with an order for another 450.

Eventually  a Taylor-Way chisel plow cut the molboard plowing out.

John Hall


-----Original Message----- 
From: Grant Brians
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 7:03 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: [AT] Plows, was Re: Supervision

I liked Dean's story about the JD60 renewal. It is a lot like one of my
Oliver 77's bought for parts that the brakes did not work. They were new
but never correctly adjusted!
      But I have a question for the list related to the JD 825 three
bottom plow and the JD60 tractor. We run several 4 bottom plows (IH and
AC) that are connected to our JD6430 four wheel drive tractors - 100HP
roughly, the motors are rated close to 125HP I believe but the PTO is
105 and the drawbar is probably 94? Those tractors are working about as
hard as they can with those plows pulling usually about 14-16" deep. Is
it just we have dry hard soil here in California or are those plows
being run MUCH shallower for you folks in the other parts of the
country? Just out of curiousity....
             Grant Brians - Hollister,California vegetable, herb,
orchard farmer and seed businessman


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