Tillage 101

Equipment

Disc Harrow

Disc harrows are used to incorporate plant material into the soil. They are easy to use but require multiple passes to make a field ready to plant. You also will need another piece of equipment to make beds that are flat and ready to plant such as a Perfecta harrow.

Perfecta Harrow

Perfecta harrows are used to make beds that are ready to either transplant or direct seed. We use them also to incorporate cover crop seed.

Spading Machine

Spading machines are a state-of-the-art tool that does what a disc harrow and Perfecta do in one pass. Added bonuses are that less fuel is used and it is kinder to the soil organic matter and organisms.

Hilling Discs

Hilling discs are used to mound up soil against potatoes and to weed between black plastic beds. Attached is a video of hilling potatoes.

Flex-tine Harrow and Basket Weeders

Basket weeders are used to weed between young crops. Flex-time harrows are used to weed between plants that are approximately 2 inches or taller. We use both at the same time on our Case 265 tractor.