Counter Rotating Tilling and Green Manures

[Whitesails]

HELP!! How well do counter rotating reverse tillers till in Green Manures? I have a BCS Tiller for my veggie garden and as a company BCS is very adamant that when it comes to tilling in green manures Forward Rotating action is the way to go.

How does this work with a field and tractor mounted tillers? Do counter rotating tractor mounted tillers do a good job of tilling in green manures?

Any experience out there with tilling in corn or other heavier cover crops with a counter rotating reverse tine tiller?

Any experience with tilling in green manures would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Green manure or cover crops are a pain when tilling. Many will wrap terribly, cereal rye is particularly bad. I do have better luck with my small (36 inch) tractor mounted tiller getting such things tilled up when I "back" through on at least the first pass essentially using it like a counter rotation tiller. A slight down-side to doing that with real heavy cover seems to be that it wants to push a little more soil ahead of the tiller. Tilling when the soil is nice and dry helps since the soil mixes in the vegetation better. On a small plot that is relatively smooth you can hit it with a rotary mower a couple of times to chop it up and eliminate long strands that want to wrap.
The best alternative I've found for most green manure crops? Hit it with a moldboard plow first then till it up.
On the other hand I planted a green manure crop of groundhog tillage radishes on about half the garden last summer, I think they'll till up real nice in the spring since the tops will all be frozen off and the tubers will have already begun to decompose.
Dead corn stalks from the previous year shouldn't be a problem for you. Again, try to make sure the old crop residue and soil are relatively dry. Working in dry, or drier, soil helps avoid soil compaction as well. RC

 

[skeets]

Yup what he said,, I use a rye mixture and hit it first with my old troy built horse, (thought the motor is toast now) and then with the big tiller,, DRY DRY DRY is better. If you have no access to the mold board then run over it a couple of times with the mower chop it up like he said, the green decays faster and gets into the cycle faster then till the snot outa it,,lol. And dont forget to get the soil sampled every couple years just to make sure what you need, like lime, potash ect. I never knew to much about this stuff untill the XYL started her green house and put up a sign, sometimes ya have to learn on the run.. lol