Joseph Weidinger

Tomorrow is the first day.

Well, hell. Didn't even know tractor supply had that. I looked at Orschelns, because usually their inventories are exactly the same... but I guess not. Thanks, bookmarked..!

Well we got it for 300 instead. It's an experiment. We'll see.

We're going to get it, more than likely. I was re-reading the original yeomans book and he talks about the tines being 2 inches wide, 1 ft. apart (the first year, in autumn) and 4-5 inches in depth. This seems to be capable of all of that and the price is reasonable and it is located just down the road.

If anyone has any suggestions on amateur laser levels or something of that nature, let me know. I'd rather use that as opposed to A-frames and water bunyips, because those are relative techniques and the laser level is absolute.! Thanks permies,

-Joseph

Thanks for all of your replies. More details on this one as we went and took a look at it. Thankfully it was 10 minutes a way, a real plus for us. The shanks themselves are 5/8 inch wide and 1 1/4 inch at the very bottom. Of course they are thicker where they overlap (1 1/4 inch), which I don't really like. It is about 5-7 inches until they overlap from the bottom of the shank. The shanks are 15 inches a part about, but we would cut off the 2nd and 4th, probably. He bought it from a guy and never used it personally (he has another). There is a rack on the back so that you can add heavy stones to to make it go deeper.

Any red flags?

Well it is a 30 hp tractor. Well, raw milk is $10 / gal and I don't have a sprayer. I attached a pic.

Yeah, I was thinking that 1-2 shanks would max out our small tractor. I want to make all subsoiling on contour. I'm not making swales and berms just yet (that is in the works). This would be just a general pasture subsoiling. I didn't think it would be that invasive to disturb things too much. I want to disturb it a little by allowing air and oxygen down in the soil, which I presume to be dead. The soil tests on these 20 acres look pretty good, but it grows very slowly and mostly weeds at that. Maybe the shanks are too close together and it will disturb things too much. Maybe 2-3 feet of separation would be better. This doesn't look like it has a lot of flexibility...

I've been pretty stoked about getting a subsoiler since reading Yeomans and Mark Shepard. It's hard to get hands on one, though. This one recently popped up on my local craigslist. For anyone with experience... what do you think of this one? http://columbiamo.craigslist.org/grd/4634435768.html

What should I keep in mind when looking for one?

Thanks, I'll try that. What would happen if you would make bread out of NOTHING BUT STARTER?

I think I understand. So it doesn't really matter then because all I want is the yeast and yeast is yeast no matter if it is whole wheat or refined (all purpose, bread flour, etc.)?