Benefits of Spring tine harrows (grass harrows) verses dragged chain harrows

Deere342

Member
Location
Derbyshire
Hello,

I have a set of 8ft chain harrows which you drag on a chain behind the tractor. These work ok but they are forever building up a large amount of trash when used.

I have looked at secondhand spring tine harrows as an alternative, one of the benefits I see is being able to pick them up at the end of each run and hopefully leave any trash at the headland of the field.

Do people feel that the tine harrows are better for the grassland than chain harrows? Or is it just pesronal preference.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
There's a big difference in price which makes it a no brainer for me!

I have got a new set of chain harrows with square links from Hacketts that are new to me, I couldn't be more pleased. The spiked side does a good job of ripping out the old grass and moss. I'll be trying it for over seeding this spring. The "smooth" side makes a great job of breaking up horse muck without ripping up the turf. Would tines be better? Probably, but also expensive.

My only real grumble is that they do drag out any stones used to fill gateways and distribute them around the farm, but that's my fault for getting hard core from the quarry!
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
A spring tine harrow is much better used as a grass harrow, do a far better job for ripping out moss and thatch, if you set them aggressive then they do a fair job of sorting poached areas. You can go fairly quick with them, almost the quicker the better.

We looked at them very closely, but they are 4-5 times the money of a normal 'chain harrow'. Might be worth it if you're doing a lot of over seeding.

Instead 3 years ago we opted for a Ritchie 6m glav hydraulic folding heavy harrow. 3 sets of levelling bars and heavy cast spikes. Think we paid about £1350 brand new. Great and super simple bit of kit, does a phenomenal job on poached areas. Set up right it does a fair job of creating a tilth if you're looking to do some over seeding, you may want to do the field twice either the opposite way to which you've travelled previously or at a different angle, same with grassland. Mole hills, muck, all broken up and levelled very well.

In my opinion its cheaper to do that than wear out expensive tines, never mind buying the spring harrow in the first place, which again, are only really designed for grass in mind. At least with the heavy harrow you have a tool that will do both jobs, albeit rather slowly, can't really do any more than 4mph depending on what you're doing.

We do a lot fair bit over seeding but mainly on horsey areas, we would ruin a set of nice spring tines, so we just go a few different ways over these little paddocks.

DSC_7741.JPG
 

Deere 6430

Member
Have both here, tend to use the old chain harrows the most. I could be with the einbock harrows for the grass but never without my chain harrows for the grass
 

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
I use a 6m Einbock, but haven't routinely harrowed grassland for quite some time. Spring tine harrows are much better at creating a tilth and have more settings on how aggressive they are, but they can still bung up and 'ball' up straw and thatch. All my small seeds are sown with a Spring tine harrow with a seeder and its a cheap, yet quite accurate way of spreading low seed rates.

Biggest advantage is speed. I do quite a lot of straw raking and stale seedbeds, and you can cover some ground with a 6m set at 12-15k, but they do cost more to run and the tine mats are more delicate (although i haven't broken many tines) than a chain harrow.
 

Deere342

Member
Location
Derbyshire
Thank you for the responses, I do like the look of the spiked heavy harrows with levelling bars as I always have mole hills to deal with.
A spring tine harrow is much better used as a grass harrow, do a far better job for ripping out moss and thatch, if you set them aggressive then they do a fair job of sorting poached areas. You can go fairly quick with them, almost the quicker the better.

We looked at them very closely, but they are 4-5 times the money of a normal 'chain harrow'. Might be worth it if you're doing a lot of over seeding.

Instead 3 years ago we opted for a Ritchie 6m glav hydraulic folding heavy harrow. 3 sets of levelling bars and heavy cast spikes. Think we paid about £1350 brand new. Great and super simple bit of kit, does a phenomenal job on poached areas. Set up right it does a fair job of creating a tilth if you're looking to do some over seeding, you may want to do the field twice either the opposite way to which you've travelled previously or at a different angle, same with grassland. Mole hills, muck, all broken up and levelled very well.

In my opinion its cheaper to do that than wear out expensive tines, never mind buying the spring harrow in the first place, which again, are only really designed for grass in mind. At least with the heavy harrow you have a tool that will do both jobs, albeit rather slowly, can't really do any more than 4mph depending on what you're doing.

We do a lot fair bit over seeding but mainly on horsey areas, we would ruin a set of nice spring tines, so we just go a few different ways over these little paddocks.

View attachment 774924
 

HolzKopf

Member
Location
Kent&Snuffit
We demo'd spring tines a couple of seasons ago, einbock and opico and have stuck with decent set of chains. On our varying ground it seemed too easy to get the springs too deep too quickly - we had a lot of tearing.

HK
 

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