Here she is being modeled by our friend Jodi Schamberger with the Berta Franco rotary plough attachment. Note the spinning blades. The plough has a vertical shaft with four yellow spiral blades -essentially the ploughshares – that turn at approximately 300 rpm. As the tractor pulls the plough forward, the plough cuts into the soil and immediately centrifugally discharges and apparently also inverts it to the side. According to the literature “in a single pass through sod, the plow will leave 10-12 inches of worked soil.” This remains to be seen. I have heard that for compacted areas it helps to have them initially ripped with a tractor before using the plough.
One of the main reasons we purchased this type of implement is because it supposedly work tough, rocky soils and because the soil is not trapped under a hood and repeatedly pulverized – which is what happens with a tiller – the soil’s structure is not beat to death and the one can avoid creating a tiller pan. Take a look at the following video to see the beast in action.
I’m looking forward to our soils drying out so we can put ‘er to work and see if she lives up to the hype.
