I give you Kudos planting by hand. I hate to see you plant sweet corn 😳 Like ya said, it is what it is. I turned over new ground by hand for a large garden, I understand dedication!!👊
Initial adjustments by the book are a good place to start. Plows need to be 'tuned' to the tractor, don't be afraid to move an inch or so to see where it works best. The old timers with the Masseys would set the front axle wide, spin the rears out, and get the plow set so the center of the tractor was directly in front of the draft point on the plow. (Frog number three on a five bottom.) When I was a kid the old greybeards that learned to plow with horses could set a semi mount to just rip through a field. They could get the tractor matched to the plow so well that they could go down a furrow straight, hands off the wheel.
I had a brand new 2015 John Deere 4052R large frame compact utility tractor with cab and R1 tires and no loader and ran a 6 foot rotary cutter behind it. These conditions you could plant pumpkins directly without rototilling.
Better take care of those older tractors. I don't see how anyone can afford those new tractors. Even 200k is alot too much plus all the computer crap and thats the cheap ones !! A 100 to 150 horse tractor will set you back 3 or more. Then you're not going to work on em but have to take it back to the store. When i was in hs you could buy a new 4020 for 10k !! Lol.
The best thing you can do is let the Massey tinker toy in the barn and get yourself a real work horse like an international or deere even one of the ol two banger will do you better. Massey always thought they could build tractors with no wheight andp make up for it with crazy things like a their crazy wheight transfer hitch.
