I will be using a hiller for the first time this spring on my MX-4800 to prepare several small vegetable gardens. With the size of the tractor and tires a single-row hiller will give me rows spaced approximately 56" on center which seems kind of far for everything except vine type plants. If i go with a two-row hiller and space things closer in the 24"-36" range it seems that I will be fighting the compaction of the tires which may or may not give good results.
Are there any suggestions to get 24"-36" on center row spacing from this tractor without having secondary issues from the tires?
Thanks!
Good day.
I don’t know that I have a solution, but I am in similar situation. I am using a bedder for potatos and a potato plow to bring them up at harvest time. My rows are definitely spaced pretty wide, so I have been planting buckwheat (for bees, deer, turkey and as a cache crop/ green manure / compost to improve soil) between the rows…so my thought is plant something else in between.
This past year I added a second set of discs to get a wider hill and maintain the height, and think it is very possible to do two rows behind it…if doing potatoes or something you want to harvest with tractor you’d be driving on the hills…likewise with a single hill, if you plan to hill as plants grow, if rows to close you will be driving on them…I hill multiple times with the potatoes to keep raising the height as the leaves keep popping up (if that makes sense). I think make two rows behind the machine in one pass would be fine if not going to continually hill / cultivate. If you go with a wider hill, I am not sure what you are planting, but you maybe be able to plant another row of something in the hill…like if you are doing beans…you could get and extra row up there if you make the hill wide enough.
Seems from your post you have already thought about the spacing and driving over….i don’t have a solution either (i think my math is the same as yours
)so maybe this doesn’t help much.
