W hat HP Needed ?

Hi Guys,
Been awhile since I"ve been on here . Enjoy the reading of the posts you fella put on here ,but tonight I"m looking for information. I recently acquired(meaning free for taking) what I believe to be an IH 10" tandem disk to use for tearing up my garden area. I have all sorts of tractors that would be overkill as far as HP and size .Am watching for a small tractor like a JD A,B,M, etc Is there a simple way of matching HP needed to width in feet of a disk to get a tractor with ample power and traction? Sorry for being clueless
Thanks for any help, Glenn

Farmall M.

Delta ,
no disrespect, farmalls are a good tractor ,I just never took a liking to them. A farmall M is about 40-45 hp, isn't it ?

Yes.40 -50 horse is perfact.35 would pull it,it would struggle...

With that 10 foot disk you would want a good JD A or JD 60 OR BETTER YET A jd g OR jd 70.

Back 40 years ago when I was a pipsqueak my dad had an oliver tandem disk that we pull with a
Fordson super major,it had plenty of power . I think that was a good 50 hp.

45 HP is enough, if you have good traction. Traction may be your limiter, like somebody else said, it's all about getting that horsepower on the ground.We pulled a 6' with an Allis B at 20HP, 7' with a Farmall H at 24HP.

Is it a heavy disk or a light one? How deep are you disking? Depth is everything. We used to pull a Deere RW 14' with small blades, maybe 16"(?) with a 51 A back in the late 50's. In plowing we were in 3rd gear and lacking traction and HP. In cornstalks 4th gear didn't load the tractor much. Got a new 630 in 1960 and the A hardly ever pulled that disk again. If your disk is a lighter built one an A wouldn't have a problem with it. If it's a heavy plowing type with 20+" blades and you pull it with an A, how well the tractor pulls it depends on how deep you sink it in. Jim

You aren't clueless on this, as you are asking one of the tougher questions....

There are heavy disks with wider spacing between blades, they dig deep and take a lot of hp. So e of the big offset disks with 25 inch blades can take 200 hp for a 10 to 12 foot width!

But a typical older finishing disk like I assume you are talking about takes far less.

But - how mich?

We pulled an old drag disk - no wheels, just angle it - of 10 feet with the Oliver 88, the ford 960, and IHC 300.

The Oliver could pull the 12 foot disk as easily, the 10 was easy pulling. The Ford had plenty of hp, but lacked traction in tough going with the smaller tires. The 300 you could bog down and had to slow up a gear. But - all were able to disk, one way or another, and were 35 to 45 hp tractors.

In fall dissing cornstalks or bean stubble, any tractor breezed along. Easy pulling.

In spring in moist soft plowed ground, all of them pulled hard, and the 300 really didnt have enough oomph. You had to angle the disk less to get through, and maybe had to disk a second time to get the job done.

So, depends what type of disk, and what kind of ground you are in, and if spring or fall......

Paul

As the others have said, it all depends on the disc and ground. I'd bet you'll end up using the M though. On my ground a heavy 10 footer requires more HP than your M could hope to produce.

I like the late model "A"; but that"s what I grew up around. Also sounds better than a "B". The "M" I don"t think would pull your 10 foot disk unless it was a single, & not a tandem harrow. Disking does a much better job with speed.