Cats Forever
That is a cool video. He is doing some serious plowing to make that D8 work that hard. As hard as some of that ground looked it is a wonder he didn't break some plow points. We don't see many roll-over plows in the Midwest but I have a 3 bottom that I use to keep terraces shaped along with the help of the 112.
That is a cool video. He is doing some serious plowing to make that D8 work that hard. As hard as some of that ground looked it is a wonder he didn't break some plow points. We don't see many roll-over plows in the Midwest but I have a 3 bottom that I use to keep terraces shaped along with the help of the 112.
If you take a look at my posting in the Chapter 2 landing page of a recent working event in the UK, there are pictures of 7 D8 tractors working on the land, a 2U, a 13A, two 14As, two 22A (UK made D8H direct drive) and a D8K.
I also have some pictures somewhere of a 22A tractor fitted with 3pt linkage from a cat challenger ploughing.
The Italian tractor in the impressive video looks like an adaptation of a cat ripper.
Something I didn't know until recently is that on the Diesel 75 and early D8 tractors a right hand driving position was an option which was very useful for agricultural use (ploughing).
Here in the UK, I know of both a right hand and a left hand drive version of the Diesel 75.
They do seem to plow deeply in Italy although this plowing is too shallow for grapes so I presume it's a "regular" annual drop. But still, just about any plowing video from Italy shows a lot of HP used on not many bottoms. It'd be nice to have an Italian member give us the scoop on the variety of methods, soil type, and crops grown. I haven't seen any that look like volcanic soil which plows and drains easily, and they have their share of volcanoes over there.
Thanks for the link Neil. Did anybody else notice the mirror on the right side. My age is catching up to me I sure don't watch the implement behind me like I use to. Maybe one would help me too.
Well Italy/Mediterranean climate not much rain all summer so dust is to be expected. More or less the same as California which I know you have seen Neil.
Farming can be more inclination mixed with tradition than science some times. But if it worked a time or 2 makes you want to do it that way again.(wink,wink) My observation vegetable farmers like deep tillage here in Calif. I think partly because they harvest when the crop is ready not when the soil will carry the harvesting equipment. One reason they use Cat crawler loaders with forks to get crops out of mud nothing else will do.
I have never pulled a plow, to many rocks here. But doing barley harvest 40 miles from home I witnessed a example of why you plow. The first 50 or 60 feet around the field was notably better than the rest of the field. The owners answer is I have one plow and one chisel plow and 2 tractors, we stopped plowing because it was not going in the ground as deep as it normal does and we where behind getting summer fallow done. So we used the chisel on this field and plowed other ground that worked better with the plowed. One of those non scientific but very easy to see things that happen and can shape a farmers thinking for years to come.
I have never pulled a plow, to many rocks here. But doing barley harvest 40 miles from home I witnessed a example of why you plow. The first 50 or 60 feet around the field was notably better than the rest of the field. The owners answer is I have one plow and one chisel plow and 2 tractors, we stopped plowing because it was not going in the ground as deep as it normal does and we where behind getting summer fallow done. So we used the chisel on this field and plowed other ground that worked better with the plowed. One of those non scientific but very easy to see things that happen and can shape a farmers thinking for years to come.[/quote]
My dad always said,the proof is in the bin.We also found that plowing pays $$$.Always at least 3 sacks or more per acre VS disking or chiseling.Whether it was beans or grain.
Could always tell exactly to the line like you if we had to stop plowing because too wet or too dry and had to use a different tool