Which plough body for grassland?

DaveJ

Member
Location
Montgomeryshire
Which (currently available) plough body would be best compromise for a workload that is:
At least 50% ploughing established grassland.
Mostly having to plough shallow
Mostly on sloping to steep ground
Varying soil types (often within the same field)
Fit modern tractor tyres in the furrow.
 

Barleycorn

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Hampshire
We have Kvernland No 7s on our plough, but in their infinite wisdom KV have dropped them in favour of No 8s or No28s which are fine for ploghing a foot deep on fen soil but bloody useless trying to plough 5" on chalk.
I too would be interested in a shallow ley plough alternative, don't know if the Ransomes YCNs are still available, they were a good body?
 

john432

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
Vogel Noot WXL430 body, will plough shallow if needed, and will plough across a slope turning the soil up hill, inverting the sod compleatly, better than most ploughs on a flat field. Think the same ploughs are now sold by Amazone in a green colour. Photo0006.jpg
And plenty of room in the furrow bottom for 600 if not 650 tyres
 

DaveJ

Member
Location
Montgomeryshire
Vogel Noot WXL430 body, will plough shallow if needed, and will plough across a slope turning the soil up hill, inverting the sod compleatly, better than most ploughs on a flat field. Think the same ploughs are now sold by Amazone in a green colour. View attachment 564024
And plenty of room in the furrow bottom for 600 if not 650 tyres

Yes I had seen that picture off you before and had an attack of covetousness:love:. How deep are you running in the picture? As you know I have an older version of the same plough, but with WY400 bodies and a disc only at the back. No complaints with the basic plough other than needing a lot of weight on the nose of the tractor, just the bodies aren't turning out to be ideal for what I do.
 

Treemover

Member
Location
Offaly
We ran an KV ecomat. Would highly recommend. But I think there must be a better compromise to the ecomat and standard boards. Some say the problem isn't the boards, but the tyres and hence the furrow width??
When I was running the ecomat, it wouldn't pull up many stones.
 

john432

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
Ploughing at about 5" deep, we had a good look at the depth, it can be decieving just looking at the step to the bottom of the furrow as the unploughed side has lifted up quite a bit. Your correct about the weight, mine is about 2 tonnes, scary turning over on slopes! But the big advantage is that it will stay down, and hold fast on side slopes. Could you get the frogs and bodies etc to retro fit your plogh? I wouldnt worry about not having discs, the skimmers work fine, even ploughed stubble turnips that had gone to seed and were up 4to 5 feet, topped them, but had to plough with out discs or skimmers,as they blocked and about 20" furrows, buried evrything pretty good.
 

DaveJ

Member
Location
Montgomeryshire
Ploughing at about 5" deep, we had a good look at the depth, it can be decieving just looking at the step to the bottom of the furrow as the unploughed side has lifted up quite a bit. Your correct about the weight, mine is about 2 tonnes, scary turning over on slopes! But the big advantage is that it will stay down, and hold fast on side slopes. Could you get the frogs and bodies etc to retro fit your plogh? I wouldnt worry about not having discs, the skimmers work fine, even ploughed stubble turnips that had gone to seed and were up 4to 5 feet, topped them, but had to plough with out discs or skimmers,as they blocked and about 20" furrows, buried evrything pretty good.

I had mine on a JD 6150r this time, that came without weights... Put ten JD weights borrowed from neighbour on and we still had a couple of wheelies.:LOL: Agree that the weight of the plough seems to help in work. I got saddled with the job of ploughing 11 acres after wholecrop rye in return, some of which had gone down in places:facepalm:. Had to get him to flail top that and still needed to take the skimmers right up.
I hadn't considered retrofitting, thought the cost might be prohibitive? Dunns would I suppose be the people to ask.
 

Barleycorn

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Hampshire
We ran an KV ecomat. Would highly recommend. But I think there must be a better compromise to the ecomat and standard boards. Some say the problem isn't the boards, but the tyres and hence the furrow width??
When I was running the ecomat, it wouldn't pull up many stones.
Should have bought it off you when you offered it!!
 

Boohoo

Member
Location
Newtownabbey
YCN and DDS boards are still available from Dowdeswell, the DDS can be fitted with an extension on the tail of the board to increase it's throw and make more room for wider tyres.
Overum claim that their XL board will work at around 4 inch deep but I've never seen them working.
 

bluepower

Member
Livestock Farmer
Russells were selling them after they lost KV. Not sure if they still are.
Halse South West are now importing Ovlac and appointing dealers throughout the uk. Looked at them at their open day and thought they looked a really well built plough. May well have one on demo to see what it is like.
 

Treemover

Member
Location
Offaly
I bet they ain't cheap! A new plough is serious money and given how wearing parts ain't cheap and most of it is wearing; getting a good one second hand is half the battle.

I found ploughing ley I had to take it easy as the furrow could do anything, but a nice pace meant it would invert nicely.
Clean stubbles; you could drive on, and the faster you went; the better the finish.
Ours had the pacomat; and even though it was a pain being so light; needing welding and bearings going; I really liked the concept of firming. The only neg was you were pulling the opposite way and it had a tendency to pull over a sod or scraw, which was annoying.
 

7740 man

Member
IMG_0319.JPG
Had an old lemken with WBU boards on, that would plough down to 4 inches easily, turned lay over brilliantly with no discs on, often thought I could pull 7 of those furrows with 120 horses the draught requirement was that low. Nowadays I only use a conventional dowdeswell UCN full discs, good for 6 inches depth. Used YCNs before & they are very good not sure if they'd suit wide tyres tho.
 

john432

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
That would get a 10 from Len! Tidy ploughing 7740. Just a thought... the modern plough boards that give space for a 650-700 tyre in the furrow must waste some power and fuel. Not only are they turning the soil over, but moving it accross an extra 12" or more. Remember my dad ploughing with a DB770, 33 hp with a 3 furrow DB plough on 12" furrows. Maybe it would be more efficient to forget having the wheel in the furrow and have onland ploughs?
 

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