Spike Tooth Harrow Questions

[Bill VA]

Anyone have or ever use a drag spike tooth harrow? The one in the pic is from the internet and appears to be green and maybe John Deere?

What was the typical use for these things and were they effective at smoothing out the soil?

Thinking about buying one and using it after disking to smooth out the seed bed.

Any sage info/advice is appreciated!

 

[Tx Jim]

I agree that section harrow with welded on teeth appears to have been built by JD.. I think it's a model # 10. My family farm had 4 sections of harrows & foldable evener. The sections when pulled over looser soil will help level soil & control smaller weeds. I've seen people utilize section harrows to scatter manure piles in pastures.

https://partscatalog.deere.com/jdrc/sidebyside/equipment/14870/referrer/navigation/pgId/1083266

 

[JOCCO]

Around me they basically went out in the horse days. Tractors went to field or chisel plows, disk harrow too.

 

[matthies]

Neighbor always pulled one over the ground after planting, stopped the rain from making ditches down the row or wheel tracks. Dad ran his 5 section with cart after drilling oats in. I was riding with him in the 4440 JD, and shouldn't have been, since he was doing a small field with a pointed corner. He turned too short and the dual caught the chain that goes to the ends of the cart that came swinging towards the cab, I yelled, he stopped, and luckily the end cart wheel just took off the outer valve stem and not the cab or us. But left the field like a blanket.

 

[showcrop]

I have an old spring tooth harrow that I used for smoothing prior to seeding down. I would have it set to penetrate only around four inches. We also used it once or twice for gathering roots where we had cleared a lot of brush and small saplings. It has five inch trees growing up through it now.

 

[DanielW]

Still have and have used a couple sections just like that at our Northern farm. We use diamond harrows much more often - same effect, just preferred as the diamond harrows are wider and cover more ground. We're still antiquated in most of our tillage methods, as we don't spray and 90% of our tillage at that farm is hay ground. Plow, disc, cultivate, harrow, broadcast seed, harrow, roll. Same way we've been doing it for the last 150 years. The harrows do a great job of a final smoothing, but in tough sod I think you'd still need a cultivator after discing to break it up more so the harrows don't plug up (or several passes with the discs first).

Maybe someday we'll join the 20th century and upgrade our tillage methods. But it took us until 2004 to stop using the binder and thresher, so the world will probably have moved onto flying cars and personalized spaceships before we get around to upgrading our tillage practices.

 

[Texasmark]

Around here, fields that get steel annually, either get a disc harrow followed by a spike tooth, or a sweep equipped, rigid shank, cultivator followed by a spike tooth, in both instances the spike is on the same frame as the cultivator up front. Especially useful for BTO's that have fields scattered over a wide area. They run tired (the rolling kind) "sectional" implements that have the wings that can be lifted up and allowing them to fit nicely on roadways but cover a wide swath when winds are dropped in the field.

I have a spike toothed chain, drag type implement that does my smoothing. I like to use is as it smoothes out plow marks making the ride for future operations (fertilizing, seeding) smoother.....reduces the "too much tractor seat" syndrome which I'm kinda getting over now.

 

[paul]

The past couple decades my field cultivator has a spring tooth harrow on the back of them, so don’t use it as often any more.

Growing up since about 8 years old, I spend hours and hours and hours pulling a 4 section harrow over our fields.

Dad had me harrow the fields in spring which were fall plowed. Made them a bit smoother and dried out the ground a bit for disking a few days later.

After disking, wait a week for weeds to sprout and then harrow to smooth the ground ready for planting. After planting, wait a week and lay the harrow teeth back half way and harrow the corn or beans just as they were about to sprout. Kill the weeds that were starting to sprout.

So yes, the harrow went over most our fields at least 3 times every spring. If an extra rain or two delayed planting, would make an extra pass ahead of the planter to dry the ground, kill new sprouts.

For small grains I still try to harrow before planting to smooth the ground and again r

 

[RobCons]

I have a small one but use the chain harrow more often. Both work to smooth a field after discing it. They both can be used to cover grass seed or deer food plot mixes. The chain harrow works better for this.

 

[dixon boy RL]

Anyone have or ever use a drag spike tooth harrow? The one in the pic is from the internet and appears to be green and maybe John Deere?

What was the typical use for these things and were they effective at smoothing out the soil?

Thinking about buying one and using it after disking to smooth out the seed bed.

Any sage info/advice is appreciated!

ground better be clean tilled ,any trash and it will just plug up

 

[Texasmark]

I bought a used JD batwing once, about a 15'. It was a framed implement...not flexible, and the problem I had was that it would pile dirt up against the lead bar and the trailing bar.....badddddddd design. The chain floats over the ground and the spikes do the work...no pileup of dirt....but debris as stated if field is not clean. That's one reason I don't put my harrow on the back of my cultivator any more.....loads up with chaff and then when it gets ready it dumps this pile of stuff on the field...ugly.

 

[PJH]

Anyone have or ever use a drag spike tooth harrow? The one in the pic is from the internet and appears to be green and maybe John Deere?

What was the typical use for these things and were they effective at smoothing out the soil?

Thinking about buying one and using it after disking to smooth out the seed bed.

Any sage info/advice is appreciated!

I have three sections of Sparta harrow and an evener that I use to scatter manure piles every spring. I flip it upside down. They were used a lot after disking back in the 60's.

 

[300guy]

We always used a harrow to smooth out a field after it was plowed. We usually did that in the spring if it was plowed in the fall. Otherwise we used it after plowing during the summer or spring. We also ran a harrow over the ground after drilling oats and sweet clover to cover all the seed.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

FIL would run a two section spiketooth over the corn when it got about three inches high. I guess it got the weed sprouts.

 

[560Dennis]

We had a David Bradley like it.
Should bring clumps to surface for better seed bed.

 

[Jim in NC]

I used one often to smooth the baccer ground before laying off rows. Later I pulled a section of channel iron behind the disc. That saved time and fuel. They are handy for dragging the pasture in early spring to break up and spread what cows leave behind.

 

[David from Kansas]

In my younger days (in the 1950's) dad planted sorghum for silage each spring with a two-row lister which made large ridges between the rows. After the sorghum reached 4-5 inches high, he would harrow down the ridges which would cover any emerging weeds or grass in the rows with a spike tooth harrow. It was one of the first jobs I had on a JD A tractor, which I really hated because travel had to be really slow so as to not bury the small sorghum plants. Sometimes the harrowing was repeated a few weeks later, depending on the weather, etc. In later years, we used a rotary hoe for this task, which was better as it didn't bury the newly emerging plants and we could travel at a much faster speed.
I do remember using the harrow to do the final prep of the ground prior to planting alfalfa.
I presently have a couple of sections of spike tooth harrow, one of which I have used to smooth plowed soil for the garden, pulled with my 4-wheeeler.

 

[Bill VA]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Here’s what I bought…

 

[Texasmark]

I used one often to smooth the baccer ground before laying off rows. Later I pulled a section of channel iron behind the disc. That saved time and fuel. They are handy for dragging the pasture in early spring to break up and spread what cows leave behind.

Before I could afford anything, moving from the city to the country, I used an old telephone (light) pole section with a couple of chains to level my fields after plowing. Was better than nothing.

 

[C. Amick]

Anyone have or ever use a drag spike tooth harrow? The one in the pic is from the internet and appears to be green and maybe John Deere?

What was the typical use for these things and were they effective at smoothing out the soil?

Thinking about buying one and using it after disking to smooth out the seed bed.

Any sage info/advice is appreciated!

I have one that I sometimes attach to my pull type disk to fill in low places.