How much plow?

I'm going to be making a run out to Ohio here in a few days, and will be haulin' parts both ways.

Part of what I'll be hauling back, I hope, is a Little Genius of some sort. My top secret purveyor of agricultural artifacts has a number of them around in different sizes, and it's a question of matching up what I can use and what he has.

For tractors I have a SuperC and a BN (the latter rebuilt with 3-1/8" FireCraters). I know I'll always have the BN, so I want to size the plow for that. I won't be doing much more than turning up gardens (some of it new ground) and the occasional plow day.

So how much can I expect the BN to handle in medium soil (not light, but not gumbo either)? 2-12? 2-14? Or am I better off with a single 14 or 16?

And the big question! If a 2-xx is in the picture, will it fit in a full-size pickup bed, or should I be takin' the car-hauler out with me?

Your Super C should pull 2-14" in my area. I doubt the BN will pull 2-12" unless you have real light soil.

A Little Genius 2-xx will fit in the back of a pick up truck. I stored a set of 2-14"s for FM and when he picked them up, we loaded them into the back of his F250 without any problem. Put the tail wheel to the front, tie the hitch to the adjusting levers, strap her in and close the tailgate and you should be good to go.

For your BN go with one 14 possible one 16 the biggest thing that youll have trouble with is the traction and lack there of. I built up my Allis B for pulling in the same range and size of the BN and i pulled 2 14" with it had all the power in the world but wayyy to much slippage. It was hard to stay in the furrow and keep it straight at the same time. The one 14 work much better. The super C will handle two 14" I have a fast hitch one for our two super C's works very nice

Andrew

2-12's 'd be a handful for the bn, i have a 2-12 little genius, but it has 14 inch plow chief moldboards on it, my b will pull it ok in first but it sure dont like it, second its working way to hard. if you are rooting around and happen to come across 3 12 inch lays for a little genius at a decent price, lemme know. mine was a 3 bottom when i got it, but it was missing all the lays, ie moldboards, shares, frogs, landsides. so i dropped one of the bottoms off and tossed the chief lays on it for now.

You and Andrew are hittin' on what I want to hear/learn.

As far as my question, do you have experience to suggest whether two 12s would be alright to handle?

As far as your needs, I suspect the geography of shippin' will play a role in whether or not the two of you can get together on somethin' but I'll certainly put it out to the proprietor for availablitly etc. .

Neither the BN nor the Super C are real good trailing plow tractors. They're too light. Both use mounted plows, which use the suction of the plow bottoms to pull down on the tractor (creates vertical draft) to increase the traction. A trailing plow adds very little vertical draft to the tractor, so you have to rely on dead weight for traction.

Thanks, Andrew. (Whew! I almost pushed the button calling you Drew, which is what we call my nephew to distinguish him from his father, who is Andy)

I know almost nothing about Allises, except that their B is a similar size to A farmall B.

How is yours weighted? Mine has the cast wheels on both sides, and I have the wheel waits weighting 8^) to be painted before I put them on. Wondering if that's enough extra to take care of the kind of slippage you've experienced, or if I should be looking at a 2-14 or get real and stick with a single.

Which gets back to my response to Andrew. Is 300# of rear wheel weights enough to overcome that for, say, a 2-12?

scotty, i am running calcium 5lb / gallon mix in my b, no other weights. with shiny moldboards, and set up right i think you'd be ok with 2-12's on the bn on a trailer plow, as long as you arent in heavy gumbo where you need 50hp/bottom, and are not plowing too deep.

Hi Scotty,

Sounds like your BN has the power enough to do the job. Though you may want wheel weights? I would be willing to give it a try once getting your plows home.

The rest of your question I would like to know as I have an 8' trailer I tow behine my car. Thanks!

Bob

Scotty it really depends how much you want to plow etc... Will it pull 2 14's yes but it will be tough. I had my Allis with 500lbs of ballast and it was slipping pretty good and never mind try to keep in the furrow. I would look for a single bottom if it was me. I have a pull behind 2 14 little genius and its a good with a H but the A, and B its a little much for them.

Andrew

I would love to know why everybody wants to hang the biggest tail he can on his dog.

Is it the brag factor? "I can yank 2XX plows with my 18 horsepower tractor."

Or is it the COOL factor?

It just isn't enough to hook on a plow that the machine can handle with ease and get the job done. No, got to drag it down until it's on it's knees and the clutch is smoking. I'll never understand that line of reasoning. I am not trying to rain on anybodies parade either.

I have a SA and I think the plow I have is a single 14".......it's more than enough tail for that dog to wag. I'm not out to impress anybody or win any speed contests...or out to smoke a perfectly good clutch by overloading it.

I have plowed with a jd 2 12 plow durring plow day several years ago in Indiana red clay with the C in 2nd gear. I have the Little Wonder 1 16 pull plow that i use on my B and it has the overbore in it. I cant wait for the ground to dry up more as i have mounted the C-193 moldboard plow on my C, think the plow was last used about 1962 and been barn kept for all these years.

I have no experience plowing, Mark, and nothing invested yet. That's why it's out there as a question.

Most of the plows my guy has are two-bottoms,. nothing smaller than 12s as far as I know. I have a tractor that can pull 2-14s just fine, but I'm ASKing how that would fare behind a weighted BN, to decide which, if any, of his plows I might want to buy.

I'm asking because I'd like to be able to use it behind both the tractors I have just now. NO question the larger one will handle it, but I have no interest in beating the smaller one to death. So, please, can the attitude.

I have a stock bore Super C that I have used a 2-14 IH trailer plow with at the plow days. It was all it wanted in some tough wheat ground that had the 630 jd's pulling 3-16 in creeper. It will fit in a full-size pickup (barely).

We had a B that my older sister plowed with in the late 40s in the gumbo in the Red River valley north of Fargo, N.D. and I'm pretty sure they pulled a two bottom John Deere plow. Not sure of the width but most likely 14 or under. I remember the B had a weight on each wheel. However, where I live now a 3-16 is a good load for my 730 JD (about 60 hp and 8,300#). Most likely you'd have the most fun with a one bottom - maybe 14" or 16" and go a bit faster - not have traction problems.

Scotty,
The BN with big pistons should be about the same as the Super C except for weight. One 16 was aload for it stock but two 12s or even two 14s should be doable as long as it isn't the whole farm and you weight it to avoid slippage. Just try not to get in the way of an Allis B they were better balanced and will eat both of them when weighted the same. The SC had to move about 1000 pounds more tractor with a smaller engine.

It should pull the 16-inch ok, similar to one used on the A. The wheels on the A would slip when in sod that I had. Hal

Gary, thanks.

I'm taking in what everybody has had to say, but you've hit my reference/starting point on the head.

I know it was a fine line betweens the As an Bs (113) being one-plow tractors and the Super C (123) being a 2-plow. Yes, my BN has the larger pistons, just because 3-1/8" is what's available anymore, making the motor pretty much the equivalent of the original SuperC.

For all of that, the trannies are obviously different, especially the two biggest gears, the ones with the costly rubber tires on them putting the power to the ground.

What I was hoping to get out of all this (contrary to Mark's little rant below) was what size plow could reasonably be handled by my BN, and honestly have no idea how the slight increase in horsepower on the BN would compare through it's gears to what the Super C (with the common 3-1/4" pistons) could do. As long as I have my Super C, I'd be pulling it behind that, but in life, the BN will be the last tractor I let go, so wanted to size any plow to that.

What I'm hearing is 2-12 is probably about max for the BN in any kind of ground and I'm thinking that a single 14 would be better suited for my long-term intentions. I could turn things up faster, obviously, with the double, but I don't have all that much to turn up in the first place and turning it all faster will only take away from the time I can spend in that heady mix of the scent of fresh-turned earth with tractor exhaust.

Thanks to all. I'll let you know what I wind up with and how it works.

I have single bottom 14 on my BN. Plows real nice anything from sand to clay. Biggest problem is in heavy ground or sod I have a hard time keeping the front end down. The tractors got more power than it needs to pull a single, but a BN just doesn't have enough weight to keep the power to the ground pulling a 2 bottom. There is always the option of piling the weights on. Just my 2 cents.

I appreciate your info, John, and Hal's below, too.

I'll likely go ahead with with the 2-14 for the Super C, and keep looking for a single for the BN. In the meantime, I'll keep the BN busy rakin' hay just to keep a load on her.

All I can hope is that I can find enough ground for the 2-14 to scour her off and let her work like she's s'posed to.

Thanks to all!

Scotty: Your Super C will pull 2x12 or 2x14 trailer plow quite handily because of the 36" rear tires, give a lot more rubber on the ground. They also hold 3 times the chloride.

The smaller tractors with 24" tires fall badly on trailer plows, and the B will be worse than the others. We're basically talking 10-20 hp per bottom, depending on conditions, and when you double that to 2 bottoms, the plow center line of draft must be very close to tractor center line of draft, almost impossible to do with a tractor as wide as the B.

On my farm over the years, I had the following plows No.8 - 2x14, one piont fast hitch 2x12, SA plow 2x12, No.60 - 3x16, No,60 - 4x16 and a 510 - 5x16 semi-mount. We pulled the No.8 - 2x14 behind H or 300 in sandy loam. The 130 and SA would not touch that plow even in the easiest going, yet they pulled those 2x12 mounted plows quite easily. The difference being trailer versus mounted plows, you just can't get enough weight on those 24" tires for traction. In those days my 130 had 12.4x24 with max chloride plus wheel weights. Today my SA and 130 don't have chloride, yet they pull the 2x12 mounted plow, even if I remove the wheel weights. I also pulled the 3x16 with 300, 4x16 with 560 or 656 and 5x16 semi-mount behind 656, why, because that centerline of draft was perfect. And that is exactly what you need to pull the maximum plow per hp. You'll also notice 656 pulled an extra bottom with semi-mounted plow. The weight transfer mounted and semi-mounted plows give tractors, probably ups the pounds per square inch rear tires have on ground by 30% to 60%.

Plain and simple, I've never seen any 25 hp, 24" rear tire tractor pull any more the a 1 bottom trailer plow. I can only assume those who tell you different are BS ing a bit.

Hugh,

That's about what I'd surmised from the others, and about what I'd expected when I first put out the question. You've put some reasoning behind it all.

I know from the shape of the hole in the drawbar that my little girl has spent some time in front of a plow, but by the time I came along, there were bigger tractors and bigger plows taking that duty, so I was kind of at odds and ends about what would fit.

Thanks!

Scotty: I just speak from experience, found through the years it out does the books. School of hard knocks we used to call it back east. That is why we went to Bangor on the weekends, and you thought it was your music.

"and you thought it was your music"

Now, that just wasn't right!!! We all know it was the exchange rate. ;8^)

Did you have to bring that up??? Dust and diesel smoke from a belly exhaust! That alone may be the reason I am not a full time farmer now.

Mark,

You have to understand that many of us spent days and weeks often well into the night getting the plowing done on time. Two 16's were much faster than 2 14's. Three 16's were even better. If the power is there to do the job, we pulled the largest plow we could. It just dosn't "feel" right to see a 656 or M pulling 2 14's. The tractor was a tool. It was there to be loaded to the max.

Talking about line of draft vs. centerline of tractor. I wholeheartedly support your reasoning about plow line of draft vs. tractor. This AC G must be the worst. Fortunately, there is a lot of red in the pic too ;-)
AC G with mid mounted plow