The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Equipment => Topic started by: Odin on November 06, 2011, 06:56:56 pm
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Evening.
Had a good do today :) The tatty field had produced a lot of dock leaves with some thick roots. When picking the spuds I would throw the dockers out onto the surface but them roots soon started growing back into the earth. I was in need of an implement that would loosen the earth up and leave the dockers on the surface so that I could pick them up to burn 'em on a bonfire, leave 'em on a dry stone wall top to wither or just hope the frost gets them. (Not doing chemicles).
Last week I saw a Spring Tine cultivator on E-bay, it looked in good condition, it was only an hour away and no bids on it when the auction had ended. The photograph did not do it any justice, it looked small and because it was painted in Ferguson Grey, it just looked like another little grey Fergi implement. Anyway, I rang the seller up, he told me it was nearly 7 foot wide, on Cat 2 linkage only 20 year old and seen little work on a market garden just ticking the soil. So we drove down in the Land Rover today with a trailer that carries a lawn tractor , 7ft X 5ft. This cultivator when lifted in was stuck over the side and front of the trailer. Its big and made out of 4 inch box section steel with 9 large spring tines on with no wear. I paid the man his asking price. We brought it back & put it on the 1210 and it loved it. Dragged it up and down the field in 4 WD, the soil just lifted and fell back and the dockers were just left there, some in clods of earth, others on top. So with a few cold nights it should see 'em off. :hshoe: :farmer:
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:thumbsup:
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excellent, sounds like a nice piece of kit. be good to see some photos.
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if you break the dock roots into pieces you spread them even more each piece grows
the best way to get rid of them is collect and feed to pigs or let pigs into the potato patch :farmer:
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Thats the reason for the spring tines. It lifted and broke the earth without chopping everything up. The reason I had so many dockers was because the first piece of equipment that I used to break up the heavy couch grass sod was a rotorvator. It was the only implement that penetrated the earth, various ploughs could not cope with the grass roots, including a single furrow Cat 1 strapped on the back of the 4 WD 1210 did not work. I started trying to plough up that field in September 10 and it was January 11 before the earth was turned over, only a borrowed rotorvator worked. Unfortunately the chopped up dockers spread and sprouted for fun. The land owner does not want pigs on there as we cannot be there 24/7 to watch them.
The beauty of the tine cultivator is that it does not chopp. Potatoes that we missed were lifted without damage, we got another 15kilo out. I noticed worms wriggling around that had not been 'mullard' by blades and the roots of dockers can be easily hand picked out of the earth. We pulled it through a nettle patch and the yellow nettle roots, something I regard as vicious, much worse than the leaves for stinging, were up side down waiting for the frost to kill 'em.
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Result :thumbsup:
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It's a good bit of kit.
those nettle roots.. like dock a small bit wil return as a vigorous nettle .. I rotavated through a patch after dragging the tops off /out by hand three weeks or so after hitting them with round up .
Today as I dug out the Jerusalem artichokes and some feral un slugged spuds I realised I'll be paying for my sins .
But as I'm not worried about using glyphospate the area will get a couple of batterings before we sow it to lawn around mid April next year . The nettle bed runs for many feet under the surface and goes down to about 13 inches. Each root had new nodules of new growth on them .
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i don't think you left the nettles long enough before removing the glyphosphate travels to the root tips and kills the plant from the the root up with docks if left you can pull the whole plant out the ground
or maybe the roundup was not strong enough :farmer:
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Eight ft wide spring tine cultivator.
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pig tail tine cultivator :farmer:
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:pig: Thats the one.