Plowing down cornstalks

[maxwell99]

I have a TO-35 Fergy with 3-12" MF62 plows.

each time i plow down cornstalks or plow any ground that has a lot of ground cover the plows easily get plugged up.

Cornstalks, what do you guys do?

bush hog them first
disk them first
or just plow them under with no pretillage

last year i bush hogged them, then disk them, then spent half my time out beside the corn patch trying to unplug the stalks out of my plow.
also i have tried with coulters (off or on) did not make any difference.
plows are in good shape with new coulter blades.

any suggestions are appreciated.

plows do a great job on land that has little ground cover, could the 12" plows just not have enough open throat for the cover material to flow through??????????

 

[maxwell99]

mf 62 plow

 

[Cienna]

Looks to me like your coulters are not set nearly deep enough---not deep enough to cause them to sever the stalk. I would say that you ought to set them deep enough so that the hub almost reaches the ground. But adjusted so that they don't interfere with the moldboard. If the stalk is severed, there shouldn't be as much of a clogging problem.

 

[Bill(Wis)]

Leave them stand just like they are over winter. They'll get as brittle as old paper by spring. Disc and plant. Saves time, fuel, wear and tear and makes a lot more sense than plowing ever did.

 

[Dean Olson]

I shred then plow.

Reset your coulters deeper. I set mine 1' above and 1' to away from the point. That will help you a bunch

 

[JMS/.MN]

12 inch is very narrow, and older plows don"t have the vertical clearance either that modern ones do. Those coulters do need to be set deeper....close to the share point. I use a flail stalk chopper on corn, even with a disk chisel as primary tillage. Stalks break down much better when in smaller pieces. More surface area to rot faster. Eliminating Fall plowing is not an option on all soils.

 

[flying belgian]

Boy, it's tough to get today's cornstalks through yesterdays plow. Especially a 12". Back in the day of that plow you had 60 bushel corn that they picked in November. Then turn the cows into the stalks over winter and plow the stalks next spring. And truth be told they still had problems. Some used to burn the stalks then plow. My great uncle replaced the lift rope on the steel wheeled plow with a cable then when it plugged he ran it up on the plowing and set the plow on fire. By the time he had a cigarette smoked it was all burned out and ready to go. Some would chop and pull a trash rake. Others would chop and use a side rake to rake into furrow. Some would do as you and chop. Others would chop and disk. Some chop and disk twice. Welcome to farming!

 

[paul]

Some years are just a challenge. Different parts of the day are a challenge - as the dew sets in or comes out, and as freezing is happening are very difficult times.

I try very hard to not do anything, just plow the stalks. It helps to combine the same way you will plow. I also spent sdome money on a plow with lots of cleaqrence, 20 inch bottoms. New large colters set deep.

Sometimes disking only makes it worse. Esp if your disk is similar to the plow, small & light....

Generally chopping them with a corn stalk chopper (heavy duty flail mower for non-farmers...) works well, sometimes you need to run a disk through that but usually not.

Your plow has very little clearace for trash, so you have about the worst setup for plowing stalks. Your coulters appear to be set too shallow. You might need to do a better job of chopping the stalks, a brush hog type might not chew them up enough - slow down with the hog might help. I need to make my stalk pieces smaller than 20 inches. You need to make yours smaller than 12 inches.....

--->Paul

 

[JDseller]

Disking anything and then trying to plow it makes a mess. The disk loosens the top layer of ground and then your disk coulters will not be able to cut the trash/stalks. With firmer ground and then setting your coulters deeper then you should be able to get the plow to work better.

The only real solution is a plow with more depth clearance and shredding the corn stalks. Trash clearance is one of the biggest reasons wider plow bottoms came about. The 12 inch plows where a carry over from the old horse plows.

 

[deereford]

Thirty years ago I started out plowing corn stalks with my dad's 1953 Case "Centenial" 2 bottom 14" plow after discing. That was a disaster. I then purchase a 3-14 JD "620" plow with some better results after chopping with a flail chopper. The next step was the purchase of a stalk chopper and a 4-18" JD plow with much better success. This still didn"t meet with my approval so I purchased a high clearance 5 shank disc/chisel plow and an 81 HP JD 2940. This is the combination that fits my needs as my corn stalks are 8 ft. tall. Unless you completely remove your stalks you will be frustrated. Hobby farming is not much fun with those circumstances. Good luck!
deereford

 

[Fergienewbee]

This is my favorite part of the forum. I've learned a lot over the past couple of years. I usually brush hog first, but I ony plant small plots.

Larry

 

[theoldtexasfarmer]

I have never had succes plowing fresh stalks or any other crop or grass with a bottom plow.I double crop my vegetable ground with winter greens and a planet jr.planted will not work in trash.All my crops are planted on bedded rows.I first mow it short with most of the trash ending in the furrows.Then I lightly disc to cut the old row down.but not to much so I can see to drive on the trash filled furrow.I then use my super a or the 140 with a one row middle buster to split the old row and bury the trash under the new row.When ready to plant,I lightly disc the row with my 4ft disc.Ihave a drag board on the front cultivator and the planter on the rear.No trash,on the surface.In the winter when its cold and wet, greens grow great wwith their roots in compost.I have a ferguson 2 bottom plow but I use it only whenbreaking new flat clean ground.Thats how a small east Texas farmer does it.The big operators have 20ft offset discs.

 

[tomstractorsandtoys1]

A two bottom 16inch plow would work somewhat better,but stalks are a pain.Works good to bushhog then wait for a rain to settle the mat.Make sure your coulters are good and set right.

 

[OLWHDA]

A plow with 12 bottoms is not a good selection for plowing trashy ground, BUT should work great in plowing sod. Was always told by the old timers that a 12 in plow should never go deeper than 6 in, and a 16 in deeper than 8 inches.

 

[Anonymous-0]

With 14 or 16 inch bottoms we got by with just a single pass at roughly a 45 degree angle with a medium duty disk. I would disk at a 30-45 degree angle to the rows and then disk again at an opposite 30-45 degree angle if using a 12 inch plow. Do the disking in the fall not the spring. Might have to adjust the 1st pass disking angle as necessary to mimimize the rough ride. Just be sure to use enough angle so the stalks are cut rather than just "aligned" and root balls are cut up. The second pass isn't as rough.

 

[Roy in UK]

I agree. We don't grow corn here but when we used to plow down mustard as a 'green manure' we used to disk it up first THEN run a big flat roll over it to give the coulters something solid to 'bite' against.

 

[El Toro]

When I was a teen we cut the corn by hand and put it in shocks to dry. In the Fall the corn ears were husked by hand then the corn was stored in a corn crib. The corn fodder was placed in another shock. When we ran low on straw we shredded the dry corn fodder for bedding. Hal

 

[maxwell99]

thanks for all the replys.

12" plows are good if all you want to do is just make the ground mad.

I will try disking the stalks down at a angle to the rows. I have a light too med 6ft disk so you know its not going to do much cutting up corn stalks, just roll over them.

I have an old team one row stalk cutter sitting out by my wood shed. Older fellow told me once, that was the greatest tool he ever saw as it help them cut up the corn stalks so they could disk them in with a team disk.

Guess the bush hog cuts the stalks up but fills the corn row middles up with stalks as i have the rows ridged up. The plows choke up when they get are trying to turn over the ground in the middle of the rows that have all the corn stalks.

I do like to get the corn stalks turned under before winter so they can rot as i like to plant this corn patch early.

Thanks again for your corn stalk plowing tips.

will let you guys know how it turns out this year.

****maybe i need to add a 3pt hitch to that old corn stalk cutter and put it back in service.

 

[Iowa Jim]

Those old plows were designed to roll over ground in a different era than we are in right now. At that time corn yielded 50 bushels per acre and we planted 15,000 seeds per acre. Now we have average yields in the 150 range and are planting upwards of 35,000 seeds per acre depending on the soil. There is much more fodder to deal with now than when we were using 12" plows.

That plow might be great for a gardend but keep it out of a commercial cornfield if you want to keep your sanity.

Jim

 

[El Toro]

The Amish up in PA use a big rotary mower that has a Wisconsin engine mounted on it. It's pulled by 3 big mules. The youngster on the seat must have been around 12. This was in early March guess they were getting the corn stalks shredded befor plowing. Hal

 

[Anonymous-0]

I'd agree with Cienna, I have a mf 43 with 14" bottms the manual states you should set the coulter to be 2" above the tip of the shares and 3/4" to left. From what I've read the notch coulters are best for corn stalks. I use the rippled coulter on mine but don't seem to have to much trouble with stalks I try to plow th same direction that I picked in so that stalks are laid out away from the plow. You might look for cover boards which are extensions to the mould board to help roll the soil over more.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I would suggest bush hog but you can disk them as well. Will probaly still have some plugs but not as many.

 

[Kevin B from Illinois]

Even the chisel plows we used over the last 15 or so years will plug I had a IHcase 6500 model worked good when I got it new got away from it 5 years ago just kept pluging making beaver huts now have a deep disk chisel never look back the BT corn has changed everything.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Never experienced this particular problem. Perhaps because we used a medium duty disk which didn't "bite" deep. Goal was to cut the stalks, not till them in. Did need to remove the plow's coulter jointers which really are for turning sod.

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

Its not just the clearance width wise, the length between bottoms makes a big difference in trash plugging.

 

[jackinok]

when I was a youngun everyone mostly used a stalk cutter before plowing. not many folks remember it but thats what a brushog type mower was originaly intended for. It simply took the place of a stalk cutter when tractors with pto's became wide spread.

 

[Billy C.]

Don't have any big fields--just quite a bit in garden. As soon as I finish gathering it I till it with a 5' Kuhn tiller behind my tractor. Two passes covering one row at a time and the stalks are chopped up and plowed under. Haven't used bush hog or disk in several years-just the tiller.

 

[maxwell99]

billy,

that is the way to go, tiller,

I had access to one a few years ago, but my neighbor pasted away and the family moved the tiller to a different location.

maybe someday i can get one.

with a tiller, you can almost take the plow/disc and move them to the big tool shed up in the sky.

only problem i ever had with the tiller: it would break the ground up so fine, that if it did rain shortly after planting, my ground would seal over. The plants would break there necks coming out of the ground.

but the tiller did a great job of breaking up the soil and left the garden level with no tracts.

 

[hoosierhog]

Well you may not like my opinion but I say get a bigger tractor and a real plow I used to us a ford 4000 (50hp) and a 3-14plow now I use an Oliver 1850 (94hp) and a 4-18 plow it still plugs some but not near like it used to also discing makes a difference but I say you need a good heavy disc I pull a white 252 18ft with 9in spacing it's a bit much on my 1850 but it destroys corn stalks. I think if you got a 60hp tractor with a
3-16 plow and a heavy 10ft disc your problems would be solved. Also as others have mentioned a disc chisel is great but in my soil it takes alot more hp to pull disc chisels my neighbor pulls a 7shank with a jd 4430 (125hp) and it know it's there.