What is the purpose of a cultivator?

[Butch 194]

Is it to weed in between rows in gardens? So does that mean many gardens have enough

room to drive their tractors down?

 

I made my rows about 52" a part. I hope that is not too wide for corn to cross pollinate.

 

I've never seen a cultivator being used so I'm guessing it's to keep weeds down to a minimum.

[Tankman 3,518]

Break the earth, grind clumps. Usually after plowin', cultivate! 

[Butch 194]

So it's not for weeding? Bummer. After I used my moldboard plow to turn everything under, I used my grader blade

to then level everything. Was I supposed to use a disc or cultivator?

Thanks Tankman!

[bitten 134]

I would use a disk or tiller after I plow. I use the cultivator to weed between rows. I plant my corn rows 36" and will run the middle of the tractor over the plants till they are to big or another way to look at it is the plants go thru the middle of the cultivator and turn up the dirt on either side of the plant.

Im sure people use them all different ways this is just how I do it.

[953 nut 55,637]

Yes, they are for weeding and breaking up clumps of roots, but the most important use for a cultivator may be as a conversation starter at a tractor show; " what the heck are those for? "        

[papaglide 542]

I plow, disc, then cultivate. Plow to turn it over. Disc to beak the dirt up. Cultivate to break it up even more and level it out. I plant my garden so that I have 30-36" between rows so that I can fit my tractor down them. I usually cultivate the rows to keep the weeds down. I have 3 minions, errrr kids that HAND PICK the weeds from around the individual plants. Unfortunately my oldest and best helper will be going away to college in the fall. I already told the other 2 that they have to pick up the slack!

[Butch 194]

If kids kept my weeds down I can guarantee you one thing, they weren't my kids.

[cruisnblue48 835]

Yup, cultivators are basically used for weed control and soil surface aeration without disturbing your crop plants.

[jdleach 525]

Cultivators are a tool designed to hook up to the tractor so that you may spend even more time on your Wheel Horse.

Seriously, cultivators were considered absolutely indispensable in farming until the advent of chemical herbicides such as 2-4-D, Round-Up, etc., during the 1950's.

The drill began for the farmer every spring with plowing, then disking, then planting. Depending on the crop and weather, Mr. Farmer would cultivate at least two times before harvest. The tines or shovels on the cultivator were designed to be adjusted to the row width of a specific crop, such that when it was pulled down the rows, the tines/shovels would glide between the rows, cutting the weeds off at the root. Some designs also permitted the shovels to throw dirt either toward the crop row, or away. Again, dependant on what type of crop you were growing.

In the past 15 years or so, cultivators have made a resurgence in popularity, mostly because of the increase in demand of organically grown foods.

I remember back when I was a kid, my Dad would hook up the cultivators to the old Farmall H, and drag them around the fields. He called it "worrying the weeds". Although a properly set up and operated cultivator did a pretty good job, you could never get all the weeds. Still, for a garden plot, a set on the back of your Wheel Horse will spare you a lot of hoeing.

[Keith 21]

A cultivator is a scenario where ground clearance can benefit.  Before herbicdes  farmers might have cultivated corn four times each year.  Horses had good ground clearance.  One of the features of the so called row crop tractor was it was narrow with high ground clearance so as to pass between the rows.   Many years ago it was popular to cross plant with check-row planters where the rows intersected at right angles in a checkerboard pattern.  Planting equipment laid at the pattern so that cultivators might cultivate beteen hills of corn as well as between the rows.   If you have an opportunity a visit to an agriculture museum can educate on the development of the types of equipment.  Garden tractors are relatively close to the ground so as to not be as useful for cultivating taller crops like corn.  As herbicides can be so effective today you might not see any weeds in much of a large field, but some weeds have gained resistence to the chemicals and can choke the crops.   Years ago a farmer might pay local kids to hoe by hand the weeds in his bean field.

[pfrederi 17,806]

Back when farmers cultivated many Tractor companies made hi-crop or high clearance versions of their tractors specifically to allow cultivation of the taller crops.  You can see the pictures of the two Case VA models below.  Mechanically they were the same.  Anyone want to try to modify a Wheel Horse to handle taller crops???  (Third picture is my own VAC...not nearly as pretty....

[Butch 194]

I'm planting Silver Queen corn. That would have to be one tall ass tractor!

[jdleach 525]

To get the proper terminology correct for those interested, the first Case in pfreden's post is a Hi-Crop. Note the tall front spindles, wide, conventional-type front axle, and high mounted rear axle with chain final drives.

 

The second tractor is called a Standard Tread or sometimes conventional. Think Ford 8N style.

 

The last Case is known as a Row Crop. Tricycle front end. Most Farmalls were of this type, such as the M, H, B, F-20, etc. Deere A and B, Oliver Row Crops, etc.

 

There were even other styles of tractors such as Wheatland, Rice, Industrial, etc., but were all of limited production.

 

From 1923 with the invention of International Harvester's Farmall tractor, later known as the Regular, the vast majority of tractors produced in this country by all manufacturers was of the row crop design until about 1960.

[Butch 194]

I'm gonna order the Brinly cultivator that Home Depot sells. It looks heavy enough

that I shouldn't need to put cement blocks on it.