What plough for ley

st1979

i am considering a secondhand plough maybe 3 or 4 furrow reversible. What do i need to make a good plough for grassland. I want to plough to about 7 or 8 inches as it seems to free up our heavy marl land. Do i need a full set of skimmers discs etc or would a disc on the last furrow be enough. Land is good ley not real rushy or anything

roadtripman

Yeah you definitly should get 1 with a full set of skimmers and discs

aristo

I think its best to avoid a rabe, we got a 16" one because it was a heavy plough and would plough deep for beet, but it is useless on lay ground, even with skimmers and discs just doesnt have the width between boards , the wider ones will probably do alright but, a vari width kverneland with No 8 or 28 bodies does a serious job on lay.
But alot of it is down to setting the plough but i think it needs to be more than 16" to totally turn over the sod

roadtripman

Weve a 16" Kverneland on number 8's with tail pieces and it does a great job in lay

tabby aspreme

I thought to plough at 7 inches a 14 inch plough would be better

roadtripman

tabby aspreme wrote: »

I thought to plough at 7 inches a 14 inch plough would be better

Yeah your spot on, your depth needs to be at least half your furrow width, we plough 9-10 inches to get enough soil to fill a 16 inch furrow.

tabby aspreme

keverneland made a plough with shallow boards known as "hydrein"boards for shallow ploughing had one years ago, as though we have any dept of soil their are lots of big granite rocks in it, was a great plough for punishment

Indubitable

I power harrow my paddocks and reseed them rather than ploughing

deerekane

stich it

Casinoking

roadtripman wrote: »

Yeah your spot on, your depth needs to be at least half your furrow width, we plough 9-10 inches to get enough soil to fill a 16 inch furrow.

Don't know about that, I regularly plough at 6 inches with a 16" plough without any problems. Also ploughed years ago with a 12" plough at no more than 4 or 5 inches. If the plough is set properly you can plough fairly shallow, and you don't need anything close to 7" inches to grow grass. If you have a problem with heavy land you'd be better off subsoiling, a quicker and cheaper solution.

mossfort

on the subject of heavy land is there much of a difference in result between using a mole plough to a subsoiler. ive used one of those 3m aerators last year but it was a waste of time. theres a fella on hire around here with a vibrating subsoiler and he claims it does a better job of loosening up the soil underneath.

Casinoking

A vibrating subsoiler is grand for tillage ground but they make an awful mess in grassland, as do most subsoilers. The best tool I've seen for grassland is the panbuster, it seems to get down to a good depth and it leaves a very tidy finish, I was strongly considering investing in one myself for hire work. I just know if there would be enough widespread demand to justify it, particularly this year when subsoiling won't make it into many people's budget.