[AT] Plows, was Re: Supervision

[Spencer Yost]

I used to at least see people with large gardens plowing with their 8N or some other small tractor.  But now-a-days even gardeners have gone no-till; utilizing various raised beds methods.

I haven't seen a plow in the ground in 5 years


Spencer

> On Jun 29, 2015, at 6:46, "charlie hill" <charliehill at embarqmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Cecil,  yes I'm sure it depends a lot on soil types.
> Around here most of the land is loamy sand or
> highly organic soil that doesn't have the hard pan
> compaction problems you probably have.
> Even the guys with heavy clay land here have stopped
> plowing.  I can't remember when I saw a set of bottom
> plows in a field other than maybe a small farmer still
> doing things the old way.  The bottom plows have been replaced
> by chisels and rippers and in recent years by some new
> tillage contraptions that are foreign to me.   They look like a
> combination of a pea weeder and an old reel type lawn mower, both
> on steroids with some other stuff thrown in.    Really, I think the
> big disc harrows most of the guys are pulling now cut deeper than
> we used to cut with bottom plows.
> 
> I noticed one farm near here that I pass often.  This year the guy no-tilled
> 3 out of the 4 fields and the 4th one he disced twice and ran one of those
> contraptions over.  That field looked as nice, flat and stubble free as
> we used to make our tobacco fields.  I figured he must be going to plant a
> different crop in that field but when the seed came up he had cotton in all
> 4 fields.  Then I got to thinking maybe he has them in a rotation where he
> does deep tillage on each field every few years.  If I see him any time soon
> I'll try to think to ask him or I'll wait 'til next year and see what he 
> does.
> 
> Charlie