What’s the best direct drill for dealing with big stones?

[mikep]

I wish it was it that simple! Our neighbour took one of our fields to grow stubble turnips on for his sheep and he got a contractor to drill it with his GD drill and has has pulled up as many stones as our DTS, the angle of the disc seems to pull them out. The tine does seem to be more flexible than a disc.

Try a disc drill with vertical discs such as a 750 or similar and you will be surprised at how little it disturbs stones. My drill will drill over stones lying on the surface or partially buried without moving them unless the disc runs on the edge and flips them.

 

[Thomas Simpson]

Try a disc drill with vertical discs such as a 750 or similar and you will be surprised at how little it disturbs stones. My drill will drill over stones lying on the surface or partially buried without moving them unless the disc runs on the edge and flips them.

I do like the 750a and the avatar drill and the idea of a disc drill, have you ever blocked up with stones?
These are some of the stones we have to deal with. The jd sized one is one a 360 dug up in the fields.

 

[Deutzdx3]

I do like the 750a and the avatar drill and the idea of a disc drill, have you ever blocked up with stones?
These are some of the stones we have to deal with. The jd sized one is one a 360 dug up in the fields.

At least with all these stones you have a plentiful supply to go in front of gateways to stop our country cousins getting in. [emoji57] try a 750 drill. I’m sure @Simon Chiles will advocate them. They seem to do a good job and there are a fair few second hand ones around.

 

[mikep]

I do like the 750a and the avatar drill and the idea of a disc drill, have you ever blocked up with stones?
These are some of the stones we have to deal with. The jd sized one is one a 360 dug up in the fields.

No my drill, although not a 750, has a vertical discs and has never blocked with stones. It's not that we have many but some fields have limestone plates and it just rides over them. Also where a bit of a yard wall went out with the muck (!) there is the odd brick and it rides over them no problems. Just not very good for driver fitness as no exercise rock chucking.

 

[Richard III]

No till with a disc drill is your answer. I have a field with stones so bad as to be almost unfarmable on the worst part of it. After 10 years of No Till, it looks like any other field now. One day the land will be sold and someone will try to put a plough in it, they will wish they hadn't!

I would go for a 750A, the GD drill does flip a few stones out, but not as bad as a tine. Develop a big worm population, they will slowly bury the stones for you.

 

[Fish]

I have no idea where you are in Yorkshire, but ripon farm must have sold quite a few 750s over the last 3/4 years and some of those must be working on stoney ground.

We don't really have many stones, just the odd big sandstone cobble + a few bricks and bits of cement from the fold yard bottoms, we do how ever have two places in two fields which have a lot of bricks, so many in fact that I blocked the previous drill a few times ((horsch pronto), but the jd just sails through, never jam it yet.

Then again notill is a different animal to cultivation, if you don't pull em up the stones usually stay where they are.

 

[Tractor tom7480]

Has to be a Duncan Renovator mark 4... [emoji106]

 

[benferg]

Has to be a Duncan Renovator mark 4... [emoji106]

If you use one of these long enough you will begin to hate the purchase price of new spring tines...

Have owned one for ages. It has its place but in stones They just bring more stones up.

 

[jonnyjon]

In some places there is very little soil for the stones to sink into, we pick alot of stones every year even with min till only working down to 4-5inch.The stones make their way to the top every year, thats just mother nature.We have fields we cant plough as they are too stoney so just a couple of passes with a carrier does the job but it still pulls stones up.

Do stones make their way to the top in a field that isn't tilled ?? Mother nature's way of doing it ?? I don't think so

 

[Thomas Simpson]

Frost heaving helps cause stones rise to top. We have done no till disc drilling in 2 fields over the last 2 years and rolled and picked all stones off and we still arent short of them. If we carry on like this hopefully we will see a reduction over the years.

 

[D14]

I do like the 750a and the avatar drill and the idea of a disc drill, have you ever blocked up with stones?
These are some of the stones we have to deal with. The jd sized one is one a 360 dug up in the fields.

Don't bother with the farming bit and start removing and selling the stones. Theres a market for them.

 

[Thomas Simpson]

Don't bother with the farming bit and start removing and selling the stones. Theres a market for them.

We had a stone picker on hire and what came off helped build a road.

 

[YELROM]

We have a sumo dts which works well but it can pull lots of stones up and block up with stones and chopped straw and won’t work in cover crops.
Also we have a moore drill but it seems to pull up and block up with stones between the coulter discs and packer. The angle of discs at 8’ seem to be the problem as the sky drill is 3.5’.

What size stones generally jam between the coulter and packer?
I run a 3mtr moore drill on some stony ground and don't really get any bother with stones jamming

 

[Thomas Simpson]

What size stones generally jam between the coulter and packer?
I run a 3mtr moore drill on some stony ground and don't really get any bother with stones jamming

We have stones jamming between the discs and then they jam between the 2 press wheels joined together. We would like it to work as where there is no stone or smaller stones it runs well.
The stones will be around the 30cm long by 20cm and 20cm deep, very roughly.

 

[yellow belly]

I have found that fixed angled disc drills in hard conditions can suffer cracked discs when the weight per disc is high enough for press wheels to have any down pressure

With the gd not had a broken disc in hard conditions as it rides round the stone flicking it up ready for stone picking