permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

On 2/8/2012 1:52 AM, wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

> One question. The tilthing machine is a great idea but why is it so
> expensive?

Replace 70hp tractor with elephant, mount wheels and adjustable height 
frame on hiller-bedder-tilther and get to work.

The unit I used was made up of off the shelf components from Roll-A-Cone 
Mfg. in Tulia Texas. I fine tuned positioning of components on the frame 
and it worked flawlessly. I have often wondered if I am the only one in 
history who has use this exact implement. I used a three shank Yeomans 
Keyline plow also. This too could be adapted for pulling with draft 
animal with wheels and adjustable frame. For a whole lot more money than 
I spent on mine you can buy very elaborate setups from Yeomans, ready to 
go with draft animal but lacking any PTO or hydraulic components. This 
unit would cover the tracks of the elephant
in final passes, making sure not work wet dirt if it is anything other 
than sandy or black prairie loam.
It can all be seen here, Yeomans included:
https://picasaweb.google.com/103223907782626104592/TractorEquipment
This would be the ideal implement for use in China, Southeast Asia, 
India, the Phillipines or anywhere else in the World, especially here in 
the USA.
I have used these units for years and know what they can do for heavy 
silt loam soil. You can easily turn red dirt into brown dirt with the 
necessary soil amendments and cover cropping. They would work well in a 
minimum till scenario, working toward no till and manual cultivation as 
needed for weed control and seedbed preparation.
I am sure that Roll-A-Cone would ship components to foreign countries.
Units can be fabricated to almost any width but the desired result is 
one big wide tall flat raised bed with drainage channels beside the beds 
and between parallel rows of beds. You could do one bed, two bed or 
three bed units and use multiple elephants, horses or oxen to pull them. 
A one bed unit is the best way to go; just take the time needed to do a 
good job on each bed. Of course you could use multiple animals pulling 
one bed units. The final configuration is had involved a hiller bedder 
on a frame with two eight foot toolbars.  26" disks were mounted, two 
per side, one in front and one in rear, offset; these covered the 
tractor tracks and cleaned out the drainage trenches putting dirt up 
onto the bed. There were four chisel plow shanks mounted on the front 
toolbar, spaced equidistant. On the rear toolbar, between the two rear 
discs I mounted two subsoiler shanks; these were somewhat smaller than 
you dedicated single shank subsoiler but did the same thing. All disks 
and points worked together to create the raised beds. The chisel shanks 
tilthed the bed and levelled it somewhat while the rear subsoilers 
knocked bed height down and made the top of the bed flat and wide. The 
disks moved the dirt into place in a big hill between
tractor tires while the other tools tilthed and flattened the bed. A 
compromise was reached between bed height and width with the arrangement 
and positioning of the various tools. The final configuration was 
perfect, the best that could be achieved with this implement. I will 
admit that I did not try all the tooling available for this unit and 
better combinations may exist but this one did exactly what I wanted.

Got all that, Chris? Now you're ready to start importing to China to 
distribute to farmers working land where this unit can be best used. It 
would, absolutely, be perfect for flat land farming in China or 
anywhere. I will offer my consultancy for a modest fee....:-)
Seriously I could give you specifications and parts list for one unit 
and you could go from there, ordering from Roll-A-Cone. BTW all these 
components are packaged and shipped individually, assemply happens on 
site. Pricing: a bargain in todays world, price increases 
notwithstanding. Roll-A-Cone serves the needs of fermers, large and 
small. Also I bought one of thir 6 foot Cat 3 three point hitch toolbars 
to mount my three Yeomans shanks on, as shown in the pictures. This 
works perfectly well, no fancier unit is needed for creating, 
conditioning and renovating raised beds.

LL

> > In combination for land clearing and soil fertilization and
> > tilthing:
> >
> > Elephants and goats followed by pigs and poultry, then crops, in
> > rotation as often as is needed. Have the elephant pull a
> > hiller/beddder/tilther if you don't already use draft animals to do
> > this (horses, mules or oxen).