tile plow

after 8 yrs. of talking I finally talked the partners (father & brother) into a soil max by gold digger. It was pretty pricey & I found out I needed the gps unit to run the machine. I don't regret it as we have many acres we need to get tile planted in. The question is does anyone have any experience with one of these units?

I have some friends that have them. Just need a heavy tractor with lots of hp to pull it or you have to rip it twice. Denny Bell at Terre Haute has a program that will set the grade for you also. A very sharp person.

The Gold digger is a good tile plow. The trouble is what type of soil you have. In clay based soil a tile plow will smear the sides and not work for years. Also all tile plows adjust grade by tilting the boot. They do not leave a good slope in my soils.

I have tile that was plowed in by two different guys an those tile lines just do not work very well. I have gone in and had trenched tile lines put in between the plowed in ones and the dug ones work much better.

If you have tough/tight soils you will need more horsepower then most tile companies tell you. Too small a tractor and it will not plow the tile in even close to the correct slope.

Great choice on the tile plow. Are you getting the newest version? 3 point or pull type? It should pull a lot easier than the original. We have used one for 4 years and it has payed for itself many times over. 3 point version hooked to 8420 JD. Most of the time it has a helper pulling out front. GPS is not a must, but it is very helpful. Laying out laterals. Making maps. If you are doing pattern tiling, having someone come in and trench the mains saves lots of work when doing hook ups. Any questions, feel free to send an e-mail. Good luck, Larry

have a goldigger plow since spring of '99. took 5 years to tile my farm as the field came open and time allowed. really reasonable cost wise when you do it your self. best time to tile in my opinion is after wheat.after I was all tiled up, and before the requists for tiling started coming in and been busy in my spare time tiling for other people. more work than I can keep up with. haven't seen the problems with the smeering of the sides of the trench and the lines not working. ifn you don't get in a hurry after tiling and let the mounded up dirt dry for 4-5 days it crumbles back into the trench real nice. don't drive over the trench to pack it down, you don't want that. also when you dig up the lines to hook up new lines you will notice a top soil streek following up to the surface where the top soil fell backdown to the tile, this is the easiest path for the water to get into the tile, even if the tile trench was smeared, that's why you don't want to pack down the trenches till they are crumbly, then run over them with a digger.even if the trench was smeered, eventually frost would take care of the problem eventually. if tile lines weren't working, maybe they weren't installed right.what makes you feel really good is when you get started some and go look at the outlet and there is water coming out! as far as the gps, I bought that system 2 years ago, lots easier than surveying everything with a laser. have had some problems neer a woods or fenceline with trees where the signal wasn't good enough, or not at all. was told I could switch to the "glouchnov" system using more Russian satallites, but more money, haven't done that yet. maybe wait to see what the chineese come up with first! tiling works really nice if you have three people, two tiling and stringing, one digging holes ahead. I use a white 4-270 tractor for tiling and a 4-210 for puller tractor. the 4-270 pulls the plow most of the time and its got rice tires on all the way around. I am pulling a 6" boot all the time so I don't have to change back and forth with 4". this probably helps whith the tile trench as its wider and allows more loose dirt to fall back into the trench

I looked up your gold digger plow on images. Don't you guys add stone to the trench? We have an attachment on our ploughs, which we call gravel tunnel trenchers, to fill the trench with stone/gravel. We also use a hopper trailer with a conveyer belt to fill the hopper on the trencher. The photo is of a very old unit, but it still works well. The attachment for laying the pipe is not fitted but it will lay pipe and cover with stones. On short side runs and ground with a gradient we sometimes only fill with gravel, putting pipe in the main lines. Just thought some of you may be interested!
Sam

Awesome replies fellas. I got the 3pt version & will hook it to a JD 8410. The soils are not tight as we have more gravel and shale. They are just wet. Some fields I never did anything with this year and lost 3/4 of my wheat straw do to wet conditions. I know this will help exponentially and can' t afford to have the lines dug. The last 3 times I had told dug it cost near $10,000 for 5,000'.I have to much to do to keep going that route. Thank you for the advice it's always good to hear from those who have done it!