This video includes step-by-step instructions to set up a three-point mounted moldboard plow. If you would like to read my blog post about three-point draft control you can click this link: urlocalfarmer....
After all the years of plowing on my dad's farm I did not realize I had to take an algebra class to get the job done wow... we just put er in the ground and hit the gas
It is best to follow with a disk. A rototiller will do a decent job and leave a very smooth and fine seedbed, but they are very inefficient to run. They use a lot of fuel and are VERY expensive to fix when they break. Disk it once going in the same direction that you plowed, then turn 45 degrees and disk it at an angle if you need to disk it a second time! If it still is a little rough, use a field cultivator to make a nice seedbed.
Yesterday I bought a one-bottom plow to pull with my MF 25 HP tractor and have been looking for a good presentation of how to set the plow with the tractor and the tractor with the plow. Thankfully, I found your video just in time and your well-done lecture included a field demonstration. The principles are the same with the single bottom although they are a bit easier. I was lucky that it hooked up close to the 4" offset. Understanding the process of setting the depth, the pitch, and then the level made a lot of difference. This afternoon I plowed under my cereal rye cover crop and will be ready to plant in March. Thanks to you my garden will be great and my investment in the plow was worth every penny. As you asked for video ideas, I suggest you do one for each phase of this year's crops and we will enjoy learning as you go.
Been plowing my whole life and learned quite a bit out of you video. I am rebuilding some scrub brush pastures into wheat and oats and it’s gonna require pretty solid and well done moldboard plowing. The things I picked up from your explanations will greatly help. Thanks.
i plow with what ive got, only a 4 x 16 john deere so thats smaller than i need.. I have a 130hp tractor and i think it can handle a 6 bottom that i dont have. But i try to make up for it by pulling at 7 mph and running about 6 inches deep. So in a days time, ive managed to stir the dirt a bit. I come back over it in a week or so when its dried out pretty good with 18ft disc, then follow that up in the end with an 8ft tiller. Thanks for your video, many points of interest there and i always like to see the dirt being worked and engine in a strong pull
This was just what I needed to learn. Thank you! I bought an old Ford 101 two bottom, 14" plow last year, and just got it reconditioned (sand, prime, paint, new fasteners, and wear parts). Today was my first test on virgin ground. Things progressed well, and your instructions helped me manage the job, despite the rocks, and this Georgia red clay.
Wow thank you for taking the time to explain in such detail not only what to adjust but why. It's not easy doing all that filming with one hand not to mention the editing and then uploading. It all takes time so thank you! I have to say that some engineer could spend $150,000 on his degree and not be able to truly understand the how and why of everything you explain. The things people think are 'smart' really isn't. THIS takes a firm grasp on mechanics and how things in the real world work. Not saying your a genius but pretty close! LOL
Dear man, you've explained all the steppes so brillirant and easy to understand, so I salute you. However, I have 1 small question: that gap of 4", is this some universal number or is it a number dependable of the width of a plow? I have 3×12" plow, so I asume that this gap should be smaller than 4"? Thanks in advance (if you reply :))
I did a lot of plowing . Were I worked sometimes I would get laid off from work for weeks at a time. So I would plow garden's for people. I learned it was easy plowing if the plow was set right. I read in a owners manual if you would clean the dirt of the plow & paint the plows so they would not rust & pit, then the dirt would not stick to the plow as bad. It works ! 🚜🚜🚜
And this is why I installed a power link and tilt to my 3 point. I run a 3/16 plow on my Branson 48hp, I make my adjustments on the fly. My plow has a power center of cut cylinder and after having installed it, I wouldn’t go back to manually adjusting again.
Most plows you set to pull is depth is set at is 1/2 of the width of the share cut 16 inch cut equals 8 inches depth. Yes you can go deeper or shallower if you choose too. But, 8 inches should be your starting point...depending on soil type. Heavy clay should be shallower 6 or 7 inches, loam soils 8 Sandy type soils 9 or 10 inches.
That sounds about right. We have beautiful silt-loam soils here with not a single rock! It's all slack-water deposits from the Ice Age floods. In short, all of our soil here was redeposited from Eastern Washington when the floods stripped the topsoil off of that land! It's not uncommon for us to plow 10 inches deep!
Thanks. This was a valuable vid for me. I would like to ask: do those moldboard extensions Richard's plough have, keep the turves from all the time wanting to fall back into the furrow? I note you have loamy soil, but I have been trying to break up sod in a pretty heavy soil and the sod strips falling back into the furrow is a gigantic pain in the kiester. It's taking the fun out of it. Any insight? I think I have the DPLW down reasonably.
I’m afraid sir your ploughing tips aren’t cutting the mustard.. conventional plough (yours) has off set linkage pins. Which should be set on flat level ground. The beam which your plough legs fix too in the last few frames clearly show it’s not level( pitching out to the land wheel not the one in the furrow)... ANSWER. For the learners place your plough on a flat surface ie concrete back tractor to plough and adjust tractor mountings to the plough( don’t force the plough to fit the tractor). Take to field adjust top link to suit and ensure a level finish. Yours sir by the view of the last few frames are way way out. Obviously it takes a bit more fine tuning as you demonstrated but the basic setting up is as I mentioned... look up William Gwillam. Ex world match plough champion. He taught me many many years ago.. stay safe and happy ploughing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you for the tips! I have a 1960's John Deere 3-16 set up for quick connect I use on food plots occasionally. This is one of the best videos I've seen on the set up.
Forget all that math,looking at your video you probably have 14 or 16"plow,set the right wheel where it will run in the fur(6 or 8"deep,)then adjust the hitch to almost level,with the wheel in the fur.front and back..
Thank you!!! I have a garden tract and use a 10" plow I'm not a farmer or skilled in math but, does the 4 inch figure work here for a single 10" plow cause the draft line i get is 1 3/16th or 1/4 of an inch ? I.E., 1/6th of 12 is 2 and 1/6th of 10!😬
Perhaps a stupid question, but my 45 hp, 4wd compact tractor only has 18 inches, from inside of right rear wheel, to the pto shaft. Cant reverse the rims. New Holland says, no wheel spacers. Can you remove the first/lead plow, from a Ford 101 3 bottom, to increase the horizontal offset? What happens if you end up with more horizontal offset than you really need?
Nice try. There are some more adjustments that can be made and help even more to safe some tima and fuel. For beginners this should be a very good learning video! Thank you for making this and for your time invested! Greetings from germany
What about an onland plow.we had an IHC 720 6-16 PLOW THAT WAS AN INTEGRAL PLOW MEANING THAT IT DIDNT USE THE TOP CENTER LINK. SO YOU HAD TO JUDGE WHERE TO RUN IN ORDER TO DO A LEVEL FILL OF YOUR BACK FURROW.. WAS NOT HARD AFTER YOU PRACTICED AWHILE. WE PULLED IT WITH 130 PLUS DUAL WHEEL TRACTORS THAT 720 WAS A GOOD PLOUGH...I DID ALSO USE MY GRANDDADS 5-14 INTEGRAL IN FURROW WITH A 4020 John Deere It was a John Deere plough and it did a great job too
TY for your time, fuel and machine brother. Best mentoring I've seen yet for young players! Building strong, always. God blesses the generous. Kman (new follower)
Great video on how to set a 3 bottom plough up. Use to semi mount ploughs. Picked up an old kevernland plough in rough shape ! Took the shed runner off the shears and followed your set up instructions! Got the draft rite! Now ploughs like a dream, thanks for the inflo!
Whilst I applaud Joe for making this video, he has the wrong end of the stick in many instances: but he made a video - not me ( Upload time too long +other factors) thi s comment in response to comment below: Basically the Implement HAS to be free to move freely to allow steering and movement around obstacles. You have the Virtual Hitch Point and the implement must be free to rotate arond it. No Ifs, no Buts! Generally the Instruction books tell you all this ( How to set up the plow) but unfortunately quality THEORY is sadly lacking. ONe sees so many tractos Old & New Crabbing with their plows - that the drivers can't see that for themselves and that observers don't step in and help is beyond me! Imagine the tractor as the Horse ( Pair or whatever) pulling with a Chain. Horses can only pull straight - no crabbing is there? chain shows line of pulland if furrow is too wide, the plowman knows what to do. If / when he does his job properly, he should NOT be getting so many bruised hipsoff the Plough shanks as it stotters over stones as it should lift up and over in the straight line. How often I have seen film of the mannie strugglng to hold his plow at an angle ...... simply because he has not got his hitch properly aligned laterally and vertically. Hope this may stimulate some more comment with positive outcome Best regards, Slàinte Mhath
Although it looks good on paper...I'm afraid my growing season would be half over b4 I got the plow set up correctly....proper plow for horsepower tractor....git r dun!
Should the lift arms be level with each other ? my 2 bottom Massey Ferguson the two bottom lift points are different heights my 4 bottom JD is like yours with the adjustable lever.
You will have to adjust the length of your lift arms to set the level side to side. Usually it is just the right side lift arm that adjusts. Just a quick hint, if you already have them level count the number of turns on your adjuster so you can go back to level once you are done plowing.
Really great detailed information on setting up a plow. It's an art! Question, I use a two bottom rollover plow and lately it just once to lay over to one side. I just can't figure it out. Any suggestions why this is happening?
Did my garden yesterday with the Same set up turned good 👍 regardless I like your video I have not plowed in a long time got set up pretty good the first time I use too love plowing enjoyed always
Seems like a lot of screwing around. Set the tire width so that the right tires are 1 to 2 inches right of the front most share. Find a level spot and put the left tires up by the desired plow depth (should be half the share width. I use an 6x6 and 2x6s stacked up.) Adjust the plow to be level front to back and side to side. Done. That will have it so the right tires run clean in the furrow and the plow runs level at full depth with the right tires down in the furrow.
Hi, Craig. Sorry but someone forgot to pay the bill for the website hosting. I just renewed it and it's back up again. Let me know if you continue to have problems. Have a wonderful day.
I have my tractor wheels all they way out and from center to inside of tire is 27 " and I have 4 x 16 ford 151 plows and the book says it should be 32" . Any suggestions
The only suggestion would be to build spacers for your rims. If your plow does have an adjustable 3-point mount (one that slides side to side) you can slide the plow over, but you won't be running true center of draft. As I mentioned in the video, center of draft just guarantees that you are pulling the plow in the most efficient manner, but it isn't the end of the world if you have extra horsepower and/or traction.
I just noticed something - at the 20:00 mark when you drop the plow into the ground, the middle cutter wheel wasn't turning. It was being dragged through the dirt. Seized up, I suppose?
Unfortunately it was. It was the neighbor's plow and I couldn't justify putting money into it to get it turning. I suppose I could have disassembled it, but I only had the use of it for about 4 hours between two days.
Nope, not a single stone on our place! All of our soil was deposited here as slack water sediment during the ice age floods about 10,000 years ago. It is soil that was collected by the flood waters rushing through eastern WA and deposited here when the Columbia River slowed going through the mountain passes. What we do have in certain areas are crazy things called "Ice rafted erratics." They are boulders that were embedded in ice and floated down the river until they were placed here when the ice melted. They can be traced back (chemically) to NE Washington State and even Canada!
Thanks for all the interesting info. Looks like great soil for your type of farming. Have you traced your own ancestral roots back to any particular area of Europe? The dutch i think have land like yours... and as they say its amazing how water finds its own level.. Good land in Ireland generally comes with a fair share of stones , but We do also have areas of Peatling here in Ireland that are pretty much stone free but saturated..
Great video. I recently plowed a field thar had not been plowed in about 20 years. How long should I wait before I break it up again with a disc harrow and plant?
Joshua, I looked for an old manual that I had found online at one time but couldn't locate the webpage. In short, the center of draft has to do with angles from the nearest plow bottom compared to the angle of the furthest rearward landside, and for most 1, 2, 3 and 4 bottom plows it comes out to about 4 inches to the left of center. If I remember correctly, as you get into huge plows (10+ bottoms) the center of draft can be to the right of center but only because the rear bottom is so far back and the angle is so different.
When I get to end of field and front tire comes out of furrow it causes the plow to dig deep until rear tire comes out of furrow, How do you eliminate this ?
This can be cured by properly setting your draft control. I did a blog article about it here: urlocalfarmer.com/draft-control-what-is-it-and-how-is-it-used/
I have looked for coulters for our plow too. You would think that there would be a company making after-market ones, but there isn't. You might need to take a trip to a junk yard in Montana or something! :o)
@@yourlocalfarmer4888 The local Massey-Ferguson dealer said that these coulters were taken off of plows and then got sold off as scrap metal during the high price times for metal...so they may be really gone!
Well, we cheat and will spray the cover crop with glyphosate to begin the breakdown process. We wait about 2 weeks after spraying to plow, but will disk right afterward. Our soil is a silt-loam soil and as long as we continue to incorporate organic matter every year it breaks up very easily... In reality, we don't moldboard plow our fields. We are big believers in chisel plowing. The only reason we moldboard plow is to give our friends in our local antique tractor club something to do with their tractors!
The hydraulic cylinder you thought was pointless, was for landing the plow. If you notice, when plowing on the contour, you'll see the front bottom cuts a different amount of sod or soil depending on which side of the curve you were plowing.
As I mentioned in the video, you can use anti-sway bars, but they could possibly damage the lower 3-point arms or the anti-sway bars themselves if the landing bar isn't adjusted correctly, or if the wear pad has won too far. With that said, many anti-sway bars will have a slot where you can take "most" of the sway out while still letting it self center. On the JD 5065E that I use at work it cuts it to about 4 inches of side-to-side travel.
As I mention in the video, tightening the sway bars could possibly damage the lower arms of your three-point hitch. At the same time, I know how bad it is when the plow swings from side to side. I would suggest tightening them enough to control that violent swing, but they are slack when you are plowing. You want the landside of the plow to control the width adjustment, not the sway bars.
Thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. Thoroughly!! We're new to plowing, and in the process of searching for a suitable plow; something suitable for a 345HP tractor...but we're a bit keen to on-land plow instead of in-furrow plow. We run L:SW (low-side-wall) tires for compaction reasons and in-furrow plowing is therefore unsuitable. Is there any advise you might offer which could help?
I think you have done excellent job here. Can you tell us what kind of tractor did you used? What was the model and year? how many HP? how much is the weight of your plow? What is the distance between the tires center to center?
Ok, I'll just run down your list. The tractor was a 1996(?) Ford New Holland 4630 4wd. 55 PTO horsepower Weight of plow - Unknown Distance between tires - 62 inches (157.5 cm) inside to inside - 31 inches from centerline of tractor to inside of tire
