On land plowing - while waiting for colicy baby to sleep

In furrow has always bothered me, packing the soil down where it won't be loosened unless a subsoiler comes along.

I've always wondered why on land isn't more popular and heres what I've got so far:
1) Need enough hp to sink at least 5 16" bottoms, 6 is easier for proper line of draft.
2) Can't pull as many bottoms on land because the sod doesn't offer as much traction as the bottom of the furrow, especially if damp.
3)Duals make you need more bottoms to stay on land
4)It is harder to plow straight on land.

So with GPS, could you drop a bottom and plow with the line of draft off a bit?

you don't need to worry about your tire compacting the soil, the shoes of your bottoms are doing a good job of it already. your plow has to push down on the ground below in order to be able to lift the soil.

Showcrop has it right...that tire isn't doing any more compaction than the rest of the plow. I still like plowing (in furrow, 7-18") but really there isn't any reason economically to do it. I only get it out to plow the garden once in a while anymore. Plows and disks are two of the biggest sources of compaction.

True, but the plow I use is mounted, with a depth wheel in back. I've poked around in the bottom of a couple of furrows and there doesn't seem to be as much compaction on the ones that didn't have the tire down them.

Also, I've always read the worst plow pans developed where horses were used with single furrow plows as every furrow was tramped.

I'm not a plowman, most of my soil knowledge is related trying to preserve soil structure for septic leech fields and foundations.

I've read of tests and studies that found that over years of plowing, that a layer built up that was nearly impervious to water and roots. This is why we stopped plowing around 25 years ago.

How's this for on the land plowing? Not hard to navigate after a couple lands around.

Not trying to start an argument here, but when tractor mfgs. inergrated draft & depth control such as Draft-O-matic 3pt on Case tractors, the depth control portion set paramiters of where the hitch arms dropped to. The draft control sensed how hard the plow pulled. The harder the plow pulled the more the hitch armes tried to raise the plow, transfering the implement weight AND soil weight to the rear wheels of the tractor. Also when the hyd. sensing is cycling and transferring weight to the rear wheels, weight on the front of the tractor is also transferred to the rear wheels at a ratio of about 4 to 1. A pound of weight on the front was worth4# of rear wheel weights. The back wheels of the tractor were the fullcrum point of a teater taughter. Soil compaction in the bottom of the furrow is of GREAT consern. Plow shears have a tendancy to trowel a smooth surface at the bottom of the furrow which restricts moisture movement also. Shank tillage eliminates deep compaction that in furrow plows cause and eliminate the troweling effect. Disc harrows are also known villins for causing soil compaction. Modern day full 4WD tractors ar the best at reducing compaction, because the are built with about 65% of their static weight on the front axle and 35% on the rear. When they are pulling the weight of the front of the tractor transfers to the rear spreading the weight equally on all 4 corners of the tractor. 4WAs are also better than conventional 2WDs, because they spread the combined tractive HP to 4 wheels instead of 2 so less phisical weight is required to pull the same implement.

Up to about 15 years ago, we moldboarded everything. Usually about 6-8 inches deep. Fields used to be swamps in the spring. Stopped that and switched to a Glencoe disk chisel. Always pulled that about 8-10 inches deep. Fields dried faster in the spring. Last spring bought our first 4wd tractor and used a CaseIH disk ripper. Pulled it about 12-14 inches everywhere. Got quite alot of snow this winter. Very impressed with how fast the water left after all the snow melted. Only problem is NO ONE'S ripper/chisel buries trash as well as the old moldboard. Our soil tilth has suffered. Gets harder when the rain stops in Aug.

Ken, unlike a tractor a horses hoof doesn;t cover every inch of the furrow, there"s a space between hoofprints. Also, the horses hoof has a rolling action to it rather than a sliding action like a tire that slips. I seriously doubt a horses hoof or even a 4 up or 6 up cause near the compaction of a tractor with a bit of slip.

When the plows would cause a little compaction is when they started to become sled runners and were no longer sharp. A sharp share will make a loose bottom to the furrow as the knife blade part cuts and lifts the soil but let it get worn to a sled runner but will still go in the ground and as that knife blade portion of the share is no longer at the very bottom of the cut it will put pressure on the furrow bottom and tighten the soil up. The solution is to use sharp shares and not try to get by with shares that need resharpening. And the weight is the same on the same amount of ground if the wheel is on top of the ground or in a furrow, you just will see and notice any packing more in the bottom of a furrow than you will on top and the ground usually has more moisture in at the bottom of the furrow than on top so you notice it more but there is no more weight in furrow than out to compact. And for the horses feet packing, they can plow when no one else can because they DO NOT pack like a tractor tire does. When you consider that years ago the commom size plow was 2 bottoms at 12 inches for 24" total and try putting that tractor on land you would have so much side draft you could not stear the tractor even if you ran duals on the plow side and a single on the non plow side. That would be the same princple as running a narrow tread that would work good as an in furrow unit and setting those wheels out to 40" row cultivating width of 80" wheel track and trying to hitch the plow far enough to the side to get it to where it would throw the soil into the previous furrow then you would have so much side draft you could not stear even if you added enough weight to the front of the tractor that you were carrying anouther tractor up there it would try to still slide the front end to the right all the time. This is for all right hand plows as that is what all the tractor plows were with some of the horse plows left hand.