Tiller lesson learned

[Cousin Eddie]

I'm pretty new to using a tiller with my tractor and thought I would pass on a quick tip. I was using it to work some lime into one of my food plots that I will plant next spring and almost learned the hard way how powerful it can be. The plot was a little out of level, may be 3' low on one end across 100' total. Really not that much, and the soil was pretty hard as it had never been worked before. Anyway, I'm just tilling away headed down hill cause its the long way on the plot and I came to a portion that heads just a little more down hill than where I had been and the tractor just takes off like I mashed the throttle. I immediately hit the brakes but both tires are just skidding along the ground and I'm headed right for the timber and not slowing down at all. After a second of panic I realized the tiller was pushing the tractor much faster than I wanted to go. This may not have happened with a gear drive tractor but my HST just free wheeled down hill. Obviously as soon as I raised the tiller out of the ground the brakes starting working again, but if I had been much closer to the trees I would have a bigger problem. Needless to say I only tilled going up hill from then on with no more trouble. Something to think about if you get yourself a tiller and you have an HST. Never had a problem going a little downhill on my other plots that had been previously worked up, just on virgin ground. Maybe a reverse tine tiller might be a better choice with an HST.

 

[clay45]

You'll take off with a geared tractor too. Till uphill.

 

[bucktail]

Guess that's an advantage to not having live PTO that I'd never considered.

 

[lugbolt]

Reverse rotation tines might help in a situation like that. Land Pride makes one. I sure like mine. RTR1258.