Steve Wilson
Well-known member
Took off work last Friday and managed to try out the 17 foot John Deere disk I picked up at a recent farm sale. 10 foot bottom with 3 1/2 foot wings on each side.....tandem disk. It's an old one, can't see the model number because it has been repainted. The front disks are near new. I haven't measured them but they are about 17 or 19 inches tall. Regular cup. The rears may be original, as they are not near as tall as the fronts. But boy do they ever have a cup to them. WOWZA, they really pull the dirt back in. There was another old disk next to it that they sold first. The scrap man bought it. He also had the opening bid on this one, but when he saw us bid next, he stopped. Knowing we were going to use it. Sold....$300.
I headed off to the creeper lot, a 4 acre patch that we planted in forage rye and brassica late last summer, for weaned bottle calves. It was dry enough to open up, but probably not enough to finish disk. My intention was to just break it open and let the sun and wind dry it enough to run over again later in the weekend. I got off the tractor after having gone a short distance, to check the conditions. Marginally dry. You could crumble the soil rather easily. If i squished it in my hand, the ball would break up, but in larger pieces. OK, good enough, leave it at this.
Sheesh, did it ever pull hard though. I started off in my normal field working gear......third gear, low side. All went well until I hit an extra hard spot, and the wheels started spinning. New tires, filled with methanol and a cab. Plenty of weight. I had the disk lowered all the way, the wings folded up, tires off the ground, and it was biting about 6 inches deep. Downshifted to second gear high and all went well. You could look behind you and all you saw was rolled over soil.
The plan is to put this patch in hybrid pearl millet. We have two other areas, 4 acres each. One to plant Derry haybeans and german foxtail millet in, the other will be cowpeas. Though, we first have to mow and round bale the hay on those ones. No use wasting perfectly good hay. The intent is to graze the pearl millet and cowpea patches and bale the haybeans/german millet. All of these are trials to see how it works and then decide if it is economical and practiacal to do it on a larger scale. We haven't been unhappy with the Sudax we have tried the past 2 or 3 years, just wanting to explore other crops also.
I don't mind mixing the pearl millet with fertilizer in a buggy but would sure love to be able to drill the beans and cowpeas. Only problem is, every old drill I have looked at is a rusted piece of junk. A fellow about 6 miles away has an old International drill for sale....it will fit through a 16 foot gate, has grass seed boxes in front also. They want to sell it to buy a no till for their bottom ground. But, he wants $2500 for it, more than I want to spend to only plant such a few acres a year. Yea, if you catch the ground conditions right, you could probably use it to seed wheat in the pastures for winter forage and also for seeding clover in the winter or early spring. IF you could catch the ground conditions right.
Steve Wilson
Central Missouri
I headed off to the creeper lot, a 4 acre patch that we planted in forage rye and brassica late last summer, for weaned bottle calves. It was dry enough to open up, but probably not enough to finish disk. My intention was to just break it open and let the sun and wind dry it enough to run over again later in the weekend. I got off the tractor after having gone a short distance, to check the conditions. Marginally dry. You could crumble the soil rather easily. If i squished it in my hand, the ball would break up, but in larger pieces. OK, good enough, leave it at this.
Sheesh, did it ever pull hard though. I started off in my normal field working gear......third gear, low side. All went well until I hit an extra hard spot, and the wheels started spinning. New tires, filled with methanol and a cab. Plenty of weight. I had the disk lowered all the way, the wings folded up, tires off the ground, and it was biting about 6 inches deep. Downshifted to second gear high and all went well. You could look behind you and all you saw was rolled over soil.
The plan is to put this patch in hybrid pearl millet. We have two other areas, 4 acres each. One to plant Derry haybeans and german foxtail millet in, the other will be cowpeas. Though, we first have to mow and round bale the hay on those ones. No use wasting perfectly good hay. The intent is to graze the pearl millet and cowpea patches and bale the haybeans/german millet. All of these are trials to see how it works and then decide if it is economical and practiacal to do it on a larger scale. We haven't been unhappy with the Sudax we have tried the past 2 or 3 years, just wanting to explore other crops also.
I don't mind mixing the pearl millet with fertilizer in a buggy but would sure love to be able to drill the beans and cowpeas. Only problem is, every old drill I have looked at is a rusted piece of junk. A fellow about 6 miles away has an old International drill for sale....it will fit through a 16 foot gate, has grass seed boxes in front also. They want to sell it to buy a no till for their bottom ground. But, he wants $2500 for it, more than I want to spend to only plant such a few acres a year. Yea, if you catch the ground conditions right, you could probably use it to seed wheat in the pastures for winter forage and also for seeding clover in the winter or early spring. IF you could catch the ground conditions right.
Steve Wilson
Central Missouri
