# Discing vs plowing



## Rob30 (Nov 2, 2004)

Has anyone ever tried discing without plowing? A new guy in the area has alarge heavy offset disc, which he has renovated several of his pastures. I think he is doing about 2-3 passes with the disc. The field looks just like mine do after I plow, disc, and drag harrows around the field. The big advantage I see is that he covers about 12 ft per pass. My 3 furrow plow is much slower, and only covers about 4 ft at a time. 
I am using a 3pth 8 ft disc, with smooth discs. I have renovated pasture by dincing the field, but I am wondering about renovating hay fields. I usually underseed barley/oats with new grass and clover when I do a hay field. I take the grain off in fall and leave the grass and clover. I don't think the discs will kill weedsas good as plowing. 
I have to do some work to my discs anyway, so I am think about changing the front discs to serrated discs, adding some weight and trying just the discs. 
I should say my soil is heavy clay in most of my fields.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Depends on soil type and amount of sod. Heavy soil and or sod will turn into fist size chunks of sod clods.
If your plowed field looks like a disc-torn field, you need to adjust your plow. A plow should turn sod over, allowing the disc to settle the dirt.


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

ALSO, Whats the difference in hp between his tractor and yours.

His disc blades are thicker and heaver because they were made to disc unplowed ground. you try it, especially with weights, and youll be shucking disc blades, and they can be, depending on which ones shuck, a PAIN to replace.
As was said above, IF your plowed ground looks like his disced, than your plow isn't set right. The furrows should show only dirt with no vegetation on it. perhaps a bit betwin the furrows if it was over 10in tall and you didn't brush hog it.

Fix your plow. Plow your ground then disc it. Ital look better than his just disced regardless how many times he goes over it.


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## DaleK (Sep 23, 2004)

It's been over 30 years since we plowed. Offset disks work great but changing disks won't turn a 3 pt disk into an offset, they're a whole different animal. We just used a regular tandem disk and/or no-till for years and now throwing vertical tillage into the mix but all on lighter ground. On heavy ground with a true offset disk expect to use 10hp per foot. We used to have an 8' I pulled with a 66hp JD 2130 but I had to steer with the brakes


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

we use a old john deere BW disk it has about 20" diskes on it and 18' wide, us about 90 hp tractor with it, 

ground has not been plowed in over 40 years, and we have had the disk since the mid 1960's 

in to days world this is a light duty disk, but it will disk down 6" if there is any moisture in the soil, our ground is sandy,


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## Super55 (Apr 9, 2014)

The only time I ever use my plow anymore is if I need to break up a hard pan otherwise I will use my disc exclusively. The dirt I am working with only has about 5 inches of topsoil with an organic matter of less than 2% so I need to do everything I can to keep the good dirt on top.


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## idigbeets (Sep 3, 2011)

We chisel plow every few years. Otherwise its an offset disc to do the main tillage of our soils. We have a somewhat heavy soil that can't be worked when it is overly wet and the offset works great. We pull with a 130hp tractor at 12' wide. Also have a tandem disc used for more finely leveling and finishing a field.


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## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

Isn't the equation acres/fuel/hour for the total job of fitting the soil?

geo


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## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

I do not like a disk in my heavy clay soil except special needs - lumps or cutting up cornstalks.

In clay a disk tends to pack the ground hard. In sand or light loam they work much better.

Here I would plow a hay patch.

There are extremely heavy disks now that work well and I would be happy to use for this, neighbors have some, but these are $100,000 disks with 300 hp tractors pulling them. Whole different world then you and I are talking about.....

There are some older heavy offset or just heavy disks like IHC 500 that would get the job done, but we are in the 100 hp or bigger tractor range to run these?

You can get the top 4 inches chopped up with many passes with a ligh disk, but in clay you end up lacking the ground below that, not ideal results.

If this is a one time small deal a person uses what they have I do too, but for regular work a lighter disk in clay sod is not an easy or good thing.

Paul


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

I've noticed that a lot of USAmericans don't know about disc ploughs. They assume anything disced is a cultivator, and they don't know that the big cupped discs on a "stumpjump" mounting of a disc plough do the same ploughing job that mouldboard ploughs do, by digging in and turning over the top 10"-12" of soil in the furrow, burying the top growth instead of chopping the top 4" and leaving it to grow again like a cultivator does.


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## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

Can you even find parts for a disk plow? The very few I've ever seen were out f the steel wheel era of farm equipment. They must not have worked well in my rocky clay soil as just very few ever around. Molboard plows are a dime a dozen in the groves and still in use here.

Wishek makes very popular disks now around here, monster size, they look like a regular tandem disk but they work the ground like a plow. They take 300 hp and up.

Paul


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## bigjon (Oct 2, 2013)

I've got sandy-loam soil,use a 7ft double gang disc-to just disc?too many passes.i plow first-2btm-12's-48 fergie te20.then disc-then fertilize-light disc-then plant.works for me.


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## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

wogglebug said:


> I've noticed that a lot of USAmericans don't know about disc ploughs. They assume anything disced is a cultivator, and they don't know that the big cupped discs on a "stumpjump" mounting of a disc plough do the same ploughing job that mouldboard ploughs do, by digging in and turning over the top 10"-12" of soil in the furrow, burying the top growth instead of chopping the top 4" and leaving it to grow again like a cultivator does.


Now _this_ is a disc plow. Does the same thing as a moldboard, only using heavy duty discs--a lot heavier than those found on disc harrows. I wouldn't advise jumping off to take a look at my furrows, though...  Disc plows have been around in the US/North America since the early 1900's. Not as popular as the moldboard, however, probably because the blade doesn't look like it could be reforged by a blacksmith and resharpened.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqyxxuoOGVc[/ame]
geo


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

geo in mi said:


> Now _this_ is a disc plow. Does the same thing as a moldboard, only using heavy duty discs--a lot heavier than those found on disc harrows. I wouldn't advise jumping off to take a look at my furrows, though...  Disc plows have been around in the US/North America since the early 1900's. Not as popular as the moldboard, however, probably because the blade doesn't look like it could be reforged by a blacksmith and resharpened.


I agree, that's fairly impressive in use. Interesting setup with the scalloped coulters running ahead of the plough discs, too, to soften things up for the discs. It's very narrow, though - just like most mouldboard ploughs. That suits it for small acreages with a lower-powered tractor, though. I've worked with up to 14-disc ploughs, and seen much bigger, but if they went too much bigger they'd gang two or three ploughs. That was broadacre farming on loam soils - for heavier soils my father would dismount some of the outer discs, so on a heavy clay loam we might only be using 8 discs.

They don't do that any longer for grain crops, though. It's all herbicides, no-till, and air-seeders.


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## DaleK (Sep 23, 2004)

rambler said:


> Can you even find parts for a disk plow? The very few I've ever seen were out f the steel wheel era of farm equipment. They must not have worked well in my rocky clay soil as just very few ever around. Molboard plows are a dime a dozen in the groves and still in use here.
> 
> Wishek makes very popular disks now around here, monster size, they look like a regular tandem disk but they work the ground like a plow. They take 300 hp and up.
> 
> Paul


The old timers here said the few disk plows that were tried here were scrap metal within a couple of years due to rocks


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I always heard that disc plows took more hp than regular plows.


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