Implement to Pulverize Hard Clay Soil

What type of implement should I buy for pulverizing lumpy clay? Perhaps I"m dropping my deep dish disk too low. I need to know what type of cultipacker is the most effective or something related. I have a 3388 tractor 130 HP.

Once you"ve got clumps it"s hard to get rid of them. The only way you"d do it this year yet is probably to get a roto-tiller to hang on the back of your tractor. That said if you would go that route, you still want some texture because other wise it"ll be too fine and it"ll form a very hard crust after a hard rain that won"t let the seedlings break through to get some sun.

The best way to prevent clumps is to work it when it"s dry. Too much moisture in the ground and you"ll end up cutting bricks that will be there for a while in the future. Some guys use cultimulchers and tyhey see to work good, but we"ve never used one. They have spring teeth and the cultipacker wheels on them and they"re heavyu so they"ll break up clumps.

Donovan from Wisconsin

A cultimulcher will do it and your tractor should be able to pull a 10 or 12 footer okay.
The key thing is to hit it when the moisture is just right. You almost gotta go out in the field and bust up some clods by hand to see how much moisture remains in them. Don't risk getting on the field when it's too wet, it's better to have to go over it twice when it's dry than pack it down when it's too wet. Setting the teeth is kinda critical, you'll hafta experiment a little. Sometimes a disk followed by a cultipacker will do the job....but beware...disks pack the soil more than you realize.....I've had some bad experiences with fields I disked too much. Ever try to pull a Graham-Hoeme plow on packed wheat stubble/quackgrass red clay sod with a Super M? I packed it with a disk prepping for the wheat and couldn't plow it for soybeans after I combined the wheat off. Horrible job trying to rip it up again, finally had a guy rip it up the next spring with a 4020 and a 7 shank Glencoe soil saver. It grew some mighty corn but I had a small fortune in the corn crop, spray and cultivating.....corn went down to 2 bucks that year (1982) Thanks Jimmy, you misfit in the White House. Chance to rant...,.sorry.

Don
The way we toget rid of them is it and old way is use corn cob put them all over the clay soil it take sometime to work but it work good if you can some cob

A cultipacker will do the job, just beware of the issues with moisture the others have mentioned. A rototiller will also work but requires a lot of power and it leaves the soil completely pulverized. In clay that is asking for trouble. I have a double roller cultipacker, but would prefer crows feet in the front and rollers in the back if it isn't too wet. This combination breaks up the clods better. A cultipacker pulls hard in sand, but in clay I believe your 3388 would handle more than 13 ft.

Not a cultipacker as they are 1 or 2 sets of rollers, what you want is a cultimulcher that is 1 roller in front, then 2 rows of spring teeth, then followed up with a second roller. And set the teeth deep and with your horsepower you will still be able to pull a 15' and that is about as wide as they make them. I pulled tandem cultimulchers 9' width with 38 hp.

Where do you live? If you are in a northern climate and can wait a while, winter's frost will break up clay chunks.

The ground must have been worked too wet.


Glenn

Get a different farm...sorry, just got in from my gumbo that I am trying to cultivate and hill for irrigation and it never works well with any kind of cultivator. Slabs and chunks and knocked over corn at 2.5 mph and then to a different soil and it all works like soil should. These places that were leveled and they stopped in the gumbo after removing the topsoil are a killer.

Once the clods and chunks are made, they will be there all year, you may be able to cut them into smaller pieces but some dirt is never easy to farm.

It's called WINTER.

> It's called WINTER.

Yeah, WINTER is one of my favorite implements for busting gumbo clumps, but it takes so darn long to finish. Also, you have to time your plowing when using WINTER. Last year I used WINTER too soon and couldn't get my plow in the ground until spring.

When you can't use WINTER, THUNDERSTORM has a great new product called HEAVY RAIN that works wonders on those clumps. In some of my fields, you can't even consider them seeded until I use HEAVY RAIN on them, because there is no seed-to-soil contact. It's a great product and works well, but sometimes it takes a while before it's delivered when you order it.

Also, I don't think you can disk it too low if you try. I have tractor rear wheel weights strapped on my disk, and it still just skims the surface. You can bust the clumps by disking a LOT. You might not see a noticible difference every pass, but there is a huge difference between one or two passes and five.

Might want to look at a Roterra. A cultipacker will shove the clumps in the ground for you for a nice level surface, but a Roterra will actually help shatter them. I was looking at getting one, but finally decided that waiting for the weather to bust the clumps would be a lot easier and cheaper.

I think your best bet is to wait till it rains then as the edges of the clumps start to dry and change colors go to work with a drag or cultimulcher but waiting till the right time is the most important.