If you&#;ve ever tried to dig up a new garden bed by hand or use a cultivating fork to work a vegetable garden before spring planting, then you know how hard it is to work soil with manpower alone. Powered cultivators and tillers save a lot of time and make working soil a whole lot easier.
With competitive price and timely delivery, HBXG sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.
Whether you&#;re working large garden beds or tilling up garden boarders to plan annual flowers in the spring, there&#;s a cultivator or tiller available to make the job easier. But how do you know which cultivator or tiller is the best fit for your home or business?
Cultivator or Tiller: What&#;s the Difference?
The main difference between a cultivator and a tiller is in the size. Cultivators are small tools, designed for tilling up the space between rows of vegetables in a garden and mixing amendments into the soil. They&#;re great for working up small garden beds in the spring and fall or for mixing compost and other amendments in. They won&#;t work, though, for deep tilling, working up soil that has never been gardened before, to tilling up large beds.
Tillers are larger gardening equipment designed to till soil more deeply. They&#;re also larger than cultivators, so they can work more soil at a time. They&#;re good for tilling medium-size and larger gardens in the spring and fall, and working in soil amendments. They can also be used to break soil up for a new garden.
Types of Cultivators
There are two main types of cultivators: stand-alone models and multi-tool attachments. If you already own a multi-tool or an attachment-ready tool (like some string-line trimmers), then check and see if there is a cultivator attachment available.
The Echo Pro-Attachment series and STIHL KombiSystem are two top-quality multi-tool systems that offer cultivator attachments. You can use these attachments to transform your multi-tool into a lightweight, hand-held cultivator perfect for tilling up weeds between garden rows, mixing in soil amendments, and prepping small garden beds for planting.
STIHL&#;s MM 56 C-E Yard Boss is another multi-tool, but one designed primarily for use as a cultivator. It comes standard as a cultivator, and there are attachments available to change tiller tines or turn the tool into an edger, trimmer, dethatcher, or sweeper.
Stand-alone cultivators are walk-behind tools designed similarly to a small, font-tine tiller. Honda&#;s FG110 and Echo&#;s TC-210 Tiller/Cultivators are good examples of this type of tool. Both have a compact 9-inch tilling width for getting into tight spots.
Types of Tillers
For the larger tillers, we can break them into categories based on where the tilling tines are located.
Front-tine tillers have wheels in the back and tines in the front. Some of these are narrow enough to be considered cultivators, while others have a wider tilling width (up to about 24 inches). Since they&#;re larger, more powerful, and dig deeper than cultivators you can use them in larger gardens. They may be tiring to use for long periods of time, though, and rely on the operator pushing them forward.
Mid-tine tillers place the tines right under the engine. They&#;re similar to front-tine tillers, though some can be larger, up to about 36 inches wide. The weight of the engine helps push the tines deeper into the soil, and wheels on either side make these tillers a little easier to push than a front-tine tiller.
Rear-tine tillers are heavy-duty tools with wheels in the front and tiller blades in the back, with a guard to protect the operator&#;s feet. These tillers can get deeper into the soil than others and they&#;re more powerful. This makes them a good choice for breaking up soil that has never been tilled before. Since they&#;re heavier, though, they can be more difficult to maneuver and require more strength to use.
Which Cultivator or Tiller Is Right for You?
If you&#;re a landscape professional who will regularly be working up new ground for planting beds, then a powerful rear-tine tiller is a necessary tool. You might also want a smaller cultivator and/or front- or mid-tine tiller for working amendments into the soil and turning up previously cultivated ground.
If you&#;re a homeowner with a large vegetable garden, you might find value in getting a rear-tine tiller so you can turn old vegetation into the soil in the fall, mix in soil amendments quickly, and work the garden bed up before spring planting. You might also want to get a cultivator as well to help with weeding.
If you&#;re a homeowner with a smaller garden and planting beds, a front- or mid-tine tiller or a cultivator should meet your needs quite well. You can rent a larger rear-tine tiller if you need something more powerful to turn up compacted soil when starting a new garden.
Other Things to Consider
Most tillers and some cultivators are gasoline-powered. If you want a battery-powered system, then a cultivator will be your best option. Some cultivators powered by an electric cord are also available.
Most tillers come with bolo tilling tines. These work well for most tilling situations. If you&#;ll be working in rocky ground or places where there are lots of tree roots, you might want to consider a tiller model that lets you swap out the standard tines for slasher (for cutting roots) or pick and chisel (for rocky ground) tines.
Be sure to check the maximum tilling depth and width for each tiller or cultivator you&#;re looking at. That will give you a good idea of whether the tiller will work well in your space. Many tillers offer adjustable tilling depth features. Some also let you change the tilling width.
You&#;ll also want to make sure you get a tiller from a reliable manufacturer, such as Honda, STIHL, or Echo. And if you buy from an authorized dealer like Richardson Saw, you&#;ll know you can bring the tiller here for maintenance and repair if you need to. Stop by today, and we&#;ll help you find the perfect tiller to fit your home and landscaping needs.
Our definitive guide on what secondary cultivators are, how they are used & the different types.
Cultivators have been around since ancient times. The earliest forms of cultivators were hoes and mattocks, used for weed control as early as BC.
Cultivation in Canada,
While the principle of disturbing the top layer of the soil in order to make the ideal seedbed and/or growth area for the chosen crop remains the same, today's cultivators are very different from the types of simple machines the ancients used.
What Is a Cultivator?
A cultivator is a machine that disturbs the top surface of the soil to either prepare the soil into a smooth, loose, aerated seedbed, and/or to kill weeds. The term "cultivator" is very broad, and can be broken down into the 5 categories further below.
Harrows Are Cultivators
At first glance, it may seem that cultivators and harrows do the same job, however each has it's subtle points of difference. All harrows are cultivators, but not all cultivators are harrows. The definition of each word is below:
Cultivator: a mechanical implement for breaking up the ground and uprooting weeds.
Harrow: a cultivating tool set with spikes, teeth, or disks used for breaking up and smoothing the soil.
Cultivators which break up the soil around the crop in order to kill weeds (such as row crop cultivators) are not harrows, however disc, tine & power harrows are all cultivation machines. Harrows are typically used for preparing the ground before planting, and are designed to disturb the soil consistently all along the full working width.
Why Cultivate?
Cultivation is the practice of working, or tilling the soil to increase aeration & water flow, and to destroy weeds and/or crop residue through uprooting or disruption of photosynthesis through burying.
Increased aeration and looser soils have many benefits, from increased growth & better plant resilience during drought, to reduced water ponding time after heavy rain.
Read about Subsoil Aeration & its benefits in depth here
Cultivation is all about creating the ideal seedbed for your crop; the sort of ground conditions you are faced with & the desired crop will determine the best cultivation setup for you.
5 Types Of Cultivators
Although cultivators are typically secondary cultivation machines, disc harrows (known simply as discs) with high weight per blade (such as the Rata Offset Discs) may also be used for primary cultivation (breaking in new ground).
Contact us to discuss your requirements of What Is a Cultivator Tool Used for. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
Disc Harrows are a set of discs, mounted in "gangs" underneath a (usually heavy) frame, and pulled by a drawbar, or mounted to the 3 point linkage in the case of smaller speed discs.
These are ideal for rocky ground where a robust implement is required to stand up to the conditions, or cutting into ground that is heavily thatched where the blades can slice through the stringy plant matter.
There are 3 main types of Disc Harrows, the most popular being Offset Discs, followed by Tandem Discs, and speed discs.
Offset Discs are the most cost effective option relative to width when it comes to discs, with the least complexity. Their basic design has been around for 80-90 years, and this makes the components and wearing parts competitive and readily available.
Rata Offset Discs are among the best offered in NZ, with frame strength being a key focus. The design includes features like huge 50mm high tensile pivot pins, 9mm wall RHS, large 40mm square grade axles and triple sealed roller bearings just to name a few.
Tandem Discs are very similar to Offset Discs, but they have the gangs set up in an X shape. When turning with Offset Discs, the shape of the disc blades means that they ride up and out of the ground, or dig in too deeply.
The Tandem Discs rectify this problem by mounting the discs in an X configuration, keeping the implement in the ground working, even when turning.
Rata Tandem and Offset Discs both offer full hydraulic cut adjustment as standard.
Speed discs are a relatively new development compared to the other two variations. They require a special type of disc blade and different bearing and mounting setups to the Offsets or Tandems in order to be suited to be pulled at high speeds without causing excessive wear and tear
In light or sandy soils discs may also be used as a finishing tool where a finer seedbed would dry out and blow away.
2. Tine / Chain Harrows
Tine & Chain harrows are mostly a finishing tool. They are a pattern of small tines and chains that are designed to break up and knock down the larger clods left behind by passes from larger & heavier cultivation gear, such as spring or rigid tine cultivators or disc harrows. These are sometimes towed behind discs or tine cultivators as shown in the picture.
3. Power Harrows / Rotary Tillers
Power Harrows differ from the other types of cultivators in that they are PTO driven. They do not rely on the forward speed of the tractor to till the soil, bladed rotors spin vertically, usually using a system of gears from a central gearbox, and this works the soil into a fine seedbed.
Rotary tillers do a similar job to power harrows, but instead of having vertically mounted tines, they have a drum with tines attached which spins around. This does cause some soil inversion in the top layers, as the soil is dug up with every rotation of the drum.
The downside to power harrows & rotary tillers is the amount of moving parts and the PTO horsepower requirement, which can make operation with a lower hp tractor painfully slow.
4. Spring Tine Cultivators (Maxitills & Grubbers)
The Rata 812 Fully Trailing Maxitill
Perhaps the type of cultivator that everyone thinks of, the spring tine cultivator is a simple and effective means of seedbed preparation that has proven it's worth for decades.
From 15 to 70 spring steel tines with either cast or reversible points are fitted to these machines, or 1 inch coil tines for the grubbers, with reversible points.
Floating wings and land wheels make a clean, tidy, smooth & consistent seedbed finish for maximum seed germination & growth on the machines this is applicable to, such as the 812 Fully Trailing Maxitill & 813 Centrefold 3PL Mounted Maxitill.
Rata offers a full range of spring tine cultivators. From 25ft Fully Trailing & Folding Maxitills to 1.5m 3PL Mounted Vineyard Cultivators and various sizes of Grubbers, Rata have you covered.
This is also the category that most row crop cultivator fits into. Row crop cultivation equipment is designed to till the soil between the rows of crops, both aerating it and also uprooting and killing any weeds.
Choosing which spring tine cultivator is right for you can be a daunting task as there are several options, and these depend on how fine you want the seed bed, how much trash is lying around & tractor size.
The Rata 203 Centrefold 3PL Mounted Maxitill
Here are some tips to help decide which is the best Maxitill for you:
1. The larger and more heavy duty models with 50mm tines such as the 812 (Trailed) and the 813 (3PL Mounted) are suited to harsher more trashy conditions. To give more trash clearance the tines are spaced further apart, resulting in a seedbed that is less fine than the 103 (Trailed) or 203 (3PL Mounted) models.
2. The 103 and 203 have lighter tines than the 812 or 813, but they are spaced closer together. This results in a finer seedbed, allowing for less passes, although the cultivator itself has less trash clearance.
3. Tractor Horsepower is an important consideration when selecting a cultivator. For our cultivators with 50mm tines, allow 3 hp per tine. For models with 32mm tines, allow 2 hp per tine, and finally for the grubbers with their 1 inch coil tines we allow 4 hp per tine. These figures are ballpark estimates only, actual required hp will depend on soil conditions.
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5. Rigid Tine Cultivators (Chisel Ploughs)
Rigid tine cultivators, otherwise known as Chisel Ploughs, have a rigid leg attached to a main frame, usually with a spring protection system of some sort.
They are used for deeper tilling than spring tine cultivators, and do not invert the soil. Chisel ploughs may be used as an alternative for ploughs as they can loosen the soil to a similar depth.
Finding the right cultivator
can be a daunting task, one many farmers have to find out through costly trial and error.
Give our friendly team a call today to discuss what the best options would be for you
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