Farming with Walk-Behind Tractors at Kerr Center’s Cannon Horticulture Project by GEORGE KUEPPER Horticulture Program Manager-Retired KERR CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, POTEAU, OKLAHOMA • 2018 Farming with Walk-Behind Tractors at Kerr Center’s Cannon Horticulture Project by George Kuepper Horticulture Program Manager-Retired 2018 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many past and present Kerr Center employees and interns played valuable roles in learning from and documenting our decade of work with walk-behind tractors. Deserving special mention are Simon Billy, Bruce Branscum, Hannah Daniels, Jacob Delahoussaye, Luke Freeman, Lena Moore, Jon Pollnow, Bobby Quinn, David Redhage, Liz Speake, Seth Stallings, and Samantha Wann. PREFACE: This publication deals primarily with Kerr Center’s experience with walk-behind tractors over the ten-year period that I managed its Cannon Horticulture Project. Further observations come from continuing work with two-wheel tractors at my home garden in Arkansas. Last, but far from least, are contributions from Jim Shaw, of Cedar Farm/BCS, outside of Sand Springs, Oklahoma (see https://www.cedarfarmok.com/). Jim has been our primary source for walk-behind tractors, implements, parts, and guidance from the outset, and has been an inspiration for this publication. Before beginning, I ought to explain the context in which we used walk-behind technology. The Cannon Horticulture Project is a demonstration and research site that supports small farm education, alternative crop demonstrations, and heirloom vegetable trials and seed production. Its dominant educational feature is its organic bio-extensive manage- ment system.1,2 Organic management precludes using most commercial fertilizers, herbicides, and other pesticides. Bio-extensive management requires significant and creative use of winter and summer cover crops, mulches, and trends toward reduced tillage and cultivation. This is the context in which we used walk-behind technology. As a result, we made greater than expected use of different hay mowing implements. We even used a powered hay rake! This also means that we did a lot less tillage than we would do on most vegetable fields and gardens. 1 Kuepper, George. 2015. Market Farming with Rotations and Cover Crops: An Organic Bio-Extensive System. Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Poteau, Oklahoma. 75 p. http://kerrcenter.com/publication/market-farming-with-rotations-and- cover-crops-an-organic-bio-extensive-system/ 2 Kuepper, George. 2017. Organic Bio-Extensive Management Revisited. Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Poteau, Oklahoma. 8 p. http://kerrcenter.com/publication/organic-bio-extensive-management-revisited/ FARMING WITH WALK-BEHIND TRACTORS | 1 At Kerr Center, we made the decision to use walk-behind Throughout the text, we make recommendations tractors and equipment early on. We wanted to appeal regarding tractor and implement maintenance. These to small growers and expose them to a technology we are mostly things we found especially compelling. believe will become more common in the U.S. The rea- Understand, though, that we do NOT address all or even sons for this expansion certainly include the growth of most repair and maintenance issues, not even the basic interest in small-scale agriculture and gardening. They ones like oil and filter changes. We don’t need to address are logically backed by the fundamental characteristics them here. There are excellent sources for such informa- of walk-behind technology as enumerated by pioneering tion online, including the BCS America and Earth Tools organic market farmer, Eliot Coleman (see text box). sites. We provide URLs for these and other sources in the Resources section at the end of this booklet. Also, Cost efficiency also played a big role. Developing our be sure to tap your dealer and local repair shop for bio-extensive system involved the evaluation of a wide advice. They will (or should!) have up-to-date bulletins range of different farm implements. Implements for from the home office(s) and be well plugged into what walk-behind tractors cost less than comparable tools is happening with other owners and their fellow dealers for larger, four-wheel tractors. Therefore, we were able and mechanics. to experiment broadly with equipment concepts and techniques with a much smaller budget. The fact that the acreage worked with walk-behind equipment is George L. Kuepper small does not affect its applicability to larger operations; virtually everything done easily scales up. Eliot Coleman on Walk-Behind Tractors In The New Organic Grower, his excellent how-to Simplicity It is much easier to operate than a book on market farming, Eliot Coleman lists the tractor, which means inexperienced helpers can advantages of walking tractors:3 quickly learn to use it, too. Economics The initial cost is much less, as are the Maintenance It is far less overwhelming and operating costs. complicated than a tractor when repairs are needed. With its approachable scale, you will soon feel Performance Top-of-the-line models till as well as confident about making home repairs. or better than many tractor-mounted tillers (except in old sod). These machines get the job done. Lighter It creates no soil compaction and leaves no deep wheel ruts. Flexibility It is basically a power source on wheels and it adapts to many needs. It does the wide-row Smaller It is far more maneuverable and less head- cultivation and pulls the hiller between potato land is required to turn it at the ends of the rows. rows. Implements such as a water pump or a rotary mower can be run off the same unit. 3 Coleman, Eliot. 1989. The New Organic Grower: A Master’s Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener. Chelsea Green Publishing, Chelsea, Vermont. p. 93-94. 2 | THE KERR CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 4 ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS FIRST .............................. 7 TRACTORS ...................................................................... 10 IMPLEMENTS & OPERATIONS ...................................... 16 Rotary Plows .......................................................16 Moldboard Plows ............................................... 23 Two-Way Plows ................................................... 27 Rototillers .......................................................... 29 Rototilling for Secondary Tillage .................. 30 Rototilling for Sheet Composting ................ 32 Rototilling for Cultivation ............................ 33 Rototilling for Seed Coverage ...................... 34 Rototilling with a Hiller/Furrower ................. 36 Rototilling for Strip Tillage ........................... 37 Rotary Brush Mowers .......................................... 39 Sicklebar Mowers ............................................... 41 Flail Mowers ....................................................... 43 Crimper/Roller .................................................... 44 Hay Rake ............................................................ 46 RESOURCES .................................................................... 47 ABOUT THE AUTHORS ................................................. 48 For more information contact: Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture 24456 Kerr Rd., Poteau, OK 74953 918.647.9123 COPYRIGHT 2018 [email protected] www.kerrcenter.com FARMING WITH WALK-BEHIND TRACTORS | 3 INTRODUCTION: alk-behind tractors (also known as walking Wtractors and two-wheel tractors) are single-axle power units, designed to power, pull and/or push a variety of different farm, garden and lawn implements. They differ from four-wheel tractors in two obvious ways: they are small-scale – typically from 6-18 horse- power – and the operator walks behind the unit rather than riding it. These differences relegate walk-behind tractors to the status of garden rototillers in the minds of many. However, it is the multiplicity of attachments, the versatility, and the capability of walk-behind tractors that truly elevate them from over-sexed garden rototiller Figure 1. An ad for an early Red E walk-behind tractor with to legitimate small farm technology. mounted cultivator. Image from: http://www.gasenginemag- azine.com/tractors/a-short-history-of-the-red-e-tractor?slide- show=1 A BIT OF HISTORY Walk-behind tractors have a long history in America, beginning at least as early as 1913.4 The heyday, though, appears to run from about 1940 to 1970, with numerous manufacturers, including David Bradley,5 Simplicity, Ariens, Gravely, and Red E.6 Early on, many two-wheel tractors were simply traction units, with no power take-off (PTO), and capable of pull- ing only plows, middle-busters, ridgers, cultivators, and the like. Rototillers, as tractor implements or as single purpose machines, did not make a notable appearance in the U.S. until the early 1930s, when the Siemens Compa- ny introduced their German-made boden frasen or “earth Figure 2. A vintage American-made INTEC walk-behind tractor, grinders.” Boden frasen were based on a concept for ro- manufactured in the early 1980s. The standard rubber tires were tary tillage patented in 1910 by Konrad von Meyenberg, replaced with tiller wheels for primary tillage. INTEC tractors of Basel, Switzerland.7 Small-scale rototillers continued lacked both reversible handlebars and a PTO. to be marketed for many years, mostly as single-purpose rotary tillage machines. 4 Anonymous. c2017. Two-Wheel Tractor. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-wheel_tractor