Twin leg mole plough - minimal heave
- Thread starter Try to succeed
- Start date
I farm a fair bit of ex opencast coal land. All good under drainage installed plastic with gravel backfill but land is bog wet between the drains. Over top of them is bone dry
Thinking of moling them and hopefully sort the issue Have tried grassland subsoiler with limited results
Thinking of moling them and hopefully sort the issue Have tried grassland subsoiler with limited results
- Location
- Peterborough
I doubt moling will cure your problem. Moling needs a soil with a high clay content preferably undisturbed. I think your problem is a structureless soil that is slumping especially on top. You need plant roots and the biology that brings to create structure and organic matter.
Try to succeed
Member
Would a maidwell design take any more pulling than my twin leg Moore? The challenger romps away with it no problem
Try to succeed
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Adding on to last comment, I mole between 20-22 inches generally 20 though
- Location
- Peterborough
I think the Maidwell twin leg can be taken down to one leg in the middle. This may only an option on some?
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Can I assume this is restored land. I am familiar with restored opencast around South Yorkshire. And in my college days a long time ago visited Durham farms. Moling traditionally recommended in soils with a stable clay subsoil - cannot recall the exact percentage of clay but I think it was upwards of 70% plus. Silt and Sand in the mole profile can lead to enhanced degradation of the internal surface of the mole and early internal collapse. I suspect the way forward is to actually mole a few fields, carefully mark location, which these days with RTK and other GPS methods is so much easier than 40 years ago, then cut a trench across the moles in a few places over following years to inspect and see how stable are the mole channels.
Yes majority restored late seventies and eighties Good underdrainage schemes PVC permeable fill to 150mm of surface and spaced around 15 meters apart. I think water struggles to pass in between drains especially on flatter fields. There does seem a good root structure in the top soil but the subsoil is heavy clay and water has a job getting through it.
Neighbours 765 struggles with traction if it turns at all greasy with his twin leg Maidwell on heavy ground.
- Location
- Peterborough
Depends how deep you work your land. In ideal conditions you can see the ground move sideways out side your wheel marks on a single leg and go at 2.75m spacing. Other field with less stable soil we go closer.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
I would be careful if moling deeper than 20 inche some drainage systems may not be much deeper
I use a 300 hp wheeled tractor with enough weight 14.5 tonne and 800 38 rear tyres at the correct pressure for the load
If it will not pull it is is either too dry deep down or too wet on top
I used to use a 110 hp with 7.5 tonnes 40 years ago
Which model do you use, DH?
clbarclay
Member
- Location
- Worcestershire
Depends partly on the size of bullet and expander you are pulling.
4" expanders seem to be the norm now and the do need to run deep to avoid heave. 6 to 1 is a general rule of thumb, so to mole at 18" really should be done with a 3" expander.
I don't have a tractor big enough to pull a beam mole much deeper than 18" in good conditions. We got a new beam plough a few years ago, which has a slid that extends back over the bullet. It came with a 4" bullet and I couldn't get it to pull in nicely,. The heave kept pushing the back of the beam out of the ground. I swapped the leg for a worn one from the converted subsoiler we used before. This had worn down to roughly 3.25" expander and it pulls the back of the beam in much better, though still not perfect. When it does pull in properly though, it can leave a very level finish.
I did some moling last spring at 1m spacing to fix a mistake I had made when previously moling across a badly rutted tramline without a beam to keep the depth steady. With a single leg mole this meant the tractor rolled the previous run nicely.
Attachments
twb get him to demo one
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Bought a twin leg Maidwell for last harvest being pulled behind a 775E. Pleased with the results. Mole spacing on the machine was 2m but we moled with a 2.6m gap. Also have press wheels behind the mole leg. These did bend and Maidwell are due to send us a modification to strengthen the design. Quite a bit better result where crossing tramlines though than the contractor we normally use. Whether that was because it was an uneven pattern of moles (so less chance of resonance), whether it was the press wheel or whether it was something else, but it was a lot more comfortable to drive the sprayer across the moles where we'd been.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
No, we had a twin leg that we used behind a 765 and a 775, it was fine if conditions were perfect, anything but perfect and it couldn’t manage.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Oh dear. I'd better keep my fingers crossed for good conditions again this year as have a lot of moling due this year. Did you ditch the twin leg or the crawler?
It it trailed or mounted?