how many horses

[Tim Harrigan]

Originally Posted by near horse

how difficult would it be for a team to pull a single disc over intact sod/vegetated ground to start breaking it down? Most pics you see are 3 or 4 abreast but are working in plowed ground. If you remember the old JD plowing diagrams - disc first, then plow, then disc again.

Generally the pull will be related to how much, how far and how fast soil is displaced. So while a low gang angle will move nearly as much soil as a greater gang angle it is not moving it as fast or as far so less force is required. And at a given depth a consolidated soil will require breaking and fracturing in addition to moving so undisturbed ground will be more than tilled ground. But in usual practice the low weight of single gang disks limits depth penetration and draft. On sod the penetration and soil movement will generally be quite low although in wet ground (too wet for tillage) that might not be the case. Mostly I would expect lower disk draft on sod than in tilled soil, with vegetative ground such as winter wheat in the spring or recently planted cover crops it is hard to tell, maybe not much different from tilled ground.