I have been using a King Kutter 6 foot tiller on the back of a Minneapolis Moline Jetstar for several years as my primary tilling machine (35 hp?). it has done well. My first project last winter was repairing broken welds and a few hole patches. That project made me think it was time to perhaps look for a new tilling option. Well over the coarse of the winter I found myself acquiring some new (used) tillers. So I had an opportunity to try them out on the recently mostly thawed Michigan ground. I thought I might post it as I was having a hard time finding information as to what works and how many horsepower is required to operate various sized tillers. So the lineup is as follows:
1 7 foot King Kutter (one a 60 pto horsepower tractor);
1 6 foot forward rotation land pride medium duty (rta 2072 I think) on a 40 pto hp compact tractor;
1 6 foot (70") land pride reverse rotation (rtr 2070?) on a 37 pto hp slightly more compact tractor.
I ran two one pass 150 yard strips on my dried up 12" tall grass field with each and reviewed the results.
The reverse rotation tiller was the hands down winner for a one pass finished seed bed. However, tilling was slower with this one and on a couple of occasions it bogged the tractor down (not exactly sure why clay or frozen ground perhaps?). But that was a one pass plantable plot...very nice!
The second best result was the 7 foot King Kutter (kind of surprised me). Not sure if it was the weight or the extra pto hp but this one did a real nice job and could be planted probably with one pass (but I did two).
Surprisingly the third in line was the 6 foot forward rotation Land Pride. This left a lot of chaff on the top. I am not sure why this happened. The person I bought it from had welded some thick half length skid plates on it, which were dragging a lot of stuff on their front edges(when I finally noticed) along the field. So that may have affected the results by not letting the tiller get deep enough? I am going to either grind down the rough edges or buy new skids for it and see if it is any better. That tiller is really beefy and should have done better.
I ended up tilling some other large areas of the field with the 7 footer. Size does matter!! lol.
It is kind of early to plant here in Michigan as there is still snow on the ground in places. But, I have been waiting to try these out and it was a balmy 50 degrees F yesterday here in Michigan!
1 7 foot King Kutter (one a 60 pto horsepower tractor);
1 6 foot forward rotation land pride medium duty (rta 2072 I think) on a 40 pto hp compact tractor;
1 6 foot (70") land pride reverse rotation (rtr 2070?) on a 37 pto hp slightly more compact tractor.
I ran two one pass 150 yard strips on my dried up 12" tall grass field with each and reviewed the results.
The reverse rotation tiller was the hands down winner for a one pass finished seed bed. However, tilling was slower with this one and on a couple of occasions it bogged the tractor down (not exactly sure why clay or frozen ground perhaps?). But that was a one pass plantable plot...very nice!
The second best result was the 7 foot King Kutter (kind of surprised me). Not sure if it was the weight or the extra pto hp but this one did a real nice job and could be planted probably with one pass (but I did two).
Surprisingly the third in line was the 6 foot forward rotation Land Pride. This left a lot of chaff on the top. I am not sure why this happened. The person I bought it from had welded some thick half length skid plates on it, which were dragging a lot of stuff on their front edges(when I finally noticed) along the field. So that may have affected the results by not letting the tiller get deep enough? I am going to either grind down the rough edges or buy new skids for it and see if it is any better. That tiller is really beefy and should have done better.
I ended up tilling some other large areas of the field with the 7 footer. Size does matter!! lol.
It is kind of early to plant here in Michigan as there is still snow on the ground in places. But, I have been waiting to try these out and it was a balmy 50 degrees F yesterday here in Michigan!
