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Hillside Cultivator Adjusts For Slope
Faced with cultivating his strawberry and other fruit crops with a rototiller or traditional cultivator, John Shenk designed his own. While rototiller units can chew the ground up too much, traditional cultivators can cover rows with dirt, as well as rip and drag plastic and mulch, especially on hillsides. Shenk's cult
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Hillside Cultivator Adjusts For Slope CULTIVATORS Cultivators (58C) 34-5-11 Faced with cultivating his strawberry and other fruit crops with a rototiller or traditional cultivator, John Shenk designed his own. While rototiller units can chew the ground up too much, traditional cultivators can cover rows with dirt, as well as rip and drag plastic and mulch, especially on hillsides. Shenk's cultivator addressed all his concerns.
"It has an outer frame and an inner frame with mounted gangs that can be adjusted left and right hydraulically as you drive," says Shenk. "This is especially useful when cultivating alongside plastic mulch. The rear gangs can even be set to throw dirt over the edge of the plastic."
The gangs consist of sets of four rolling coulters in the front and five-tine Lilliston spider gangs in the rear. S-tine shanks are positioned to break up the wheel track.
Each pair of tillage gangs, front and back, is positioned to either side of the row. Each gang pitch can be adjusted up to 25 degrees, and the mounting plate allows for lateral adjustment and for angling the gang.
"Even with the gangs set, rear-mounted units tend to hang down hill a bit," says Shenk. "With the hydraulic cylinders, it's easy to adjust them back up hill."
Shenk, who started Hillside Cultivator Co., offers two styles of hydraulically-operated cultivators, one specifically designed for blueberries. They are each priced at just under $3,000. A fixed frame, non-hydraulic unit is available for just under $2,000. All of the cultivators are sized for 35 to 50-hp tractors.
The cultivators can also be configured with existing gangs set to either side and a third set of gangs center-mounted. The third set of gangs adds an additional $520 to the price.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Hillside Cultivator Co., 911 Disston View Dr., Lititz, Penn. 17543 (717 626-6194; sales@shenkberryfarm.com; www.hillsidecultivator.com).
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